


Forsake Unsounded Deeps To Dance On Sands

by Valkyrien



Series: New World Order [2]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: 'Pale Weirdos Fall In Post-Apocalyptic Love And Get Freaky', Also There Is Never Enough Coma-Doof Warrior So We May Never Know Whether There Even CAN Be Enough, An Alternative Title To This Could Easily Be, Because He's Fantastic, But Don't Be Fooled!, Dag Agrees Wholeheartedly, Even After The Apocalypse Great Guitarists Are Sexy, F/M, It's The Only Universal Constant We Can Depend On, Multi, My Money's On 'No', Now With 300 Percent More Worldbuilding, This Is Just A Vehicle For All The Pale Weirdo Lovin' That Won't Fit In Brave New World, This Is The Love Song Of The Coma-Doof Warrior And The Dag - Yes It's A Metal Ballad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-16 07:23:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 29,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4616457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valkyrien/pseuds/Valkyrien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dag had thought there would be no more Music in the world.</p><p>Then the Herald was Salvaged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I made a promise to the OP on the prompt post for Brave New World not to make it porn.
> 
> I made no promise that I would abstain from writing within that 'verse elsewhere in a manner which some might classify as porn. However, since it's me, this comes with worldbuilding and feels-examination.
> 
> We begin at the beginning.

 

 

 

   There is Death all around her, seeping into the earth, but there is also more Life than she has seen in too long, more than she has ever seen, and in all this Death no one is trying to hurt her.

 

 

   The War Boy who saved them has been saved, she hears, murmurs and shouts of her sister's Name - she Cares, they say with wonder, she Cares for them all - and Dag prays and prays.

 

 

   It seems someone is Listening, this day.

 

 

   This day with all its many faces, so many more than she has ever seen before, some living, some not, is a day of Salvage, not Glory, but most of all it's a day of Life and for Life, and she prays over all the ended Life that will become Life again in Time if anyone is Listening to her.

 

 

   The Lives milling around are Listening, taking her Words in their mouths and she thinks that even though her Voice is being Heard she is glad that other Voices are helping her, praying with her - even thoughtless prayers said in ignorance of their power are prayers.

 

 

   She Listens to their praying and it gives her strength, but she also Hears their countings, hears the numbers rise on both sides, and she Sees the faces, all the same, but very different.

 

 

   So many mouths silenced, she thinks as she feeds them for the last time, but they'll Feed others in Time, the ones who still speak, and she is careful with them not just for the sake of the seeds, because this is the last tenderness these starved, silenced Boys will ever feel.

 

 

   For some, it may be the only tenderness they've ever been given. It would be wrong to deny them now at the last when the gift of their Lives will actually mean something.

 

 

   Now, it will mean Everything.

 

 

   The Dag will remember their faces. They will be Honoured. They will be Shrouded in Prayer, and they will Sail the Great Swells.

 

 

   She hopes there are enough Voices to send them, that there is enough Life here to live, that her Words are strong enough, that whoever is Listening keeps Listening until she is done, until there are no more -

 

 

   “ _\- they Salvaged the Doof Rig! They're all gonna Live!_ ”

 

 

   “ _\- Axe -_ ”

 

 

   “ _\- Doof Warrior -_ ”

 

 

   “ _WITNESS!_ ”

 

 

   The numbers are different again, more Lives saved, fewer faces to remember and Honour, fewer beds to make for the Silent.

 

 

   Fewer seeds to sow where Words won't ever grow again.

 

 

   Her back aches and her eyes are as raw as her mouth, but the scent of wet earth is stronger than the stench of Death, and it feels like Hope again.

 

 

   There is so much more Hope in the world, now.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

   They should all be too tired not to sleep, but the numbers won't rest.

 

 

   Only Capable sleeps, the War Boy who saved them all beside her, across the room so as not to disturb his healing. He was badly hurt, but he's still got all his parts, Cheedo's helpers say he'll just need Time and Care, and Capable has those to give. They all have that to give, now, although after today Dag isn't sure her hands are much use for healing - she is meant to make Life in other ways...

 

 

   Numbers, Cheedo is reciting numbers to Toast, and Toast is angry, always so angry but now there is guilt and there is pain for once greater than the rage, and she is claiming,

 

 

   “ - could have saved more, if we'd been faster, if they hadn't had all the best Rigs with them already!”

 

 

   “More than half,” Cheedo whispers, fingers nervous at Dag's wrist, her voice steadier than Dag has ever heard it before,

 

 

   “More than half saved, more than half of those will live well. Now they'll all really live. It's still Better, it's still so many, so many more than we thought - ”

 

 

   “It's a waste,” Toast corrects harshly, because she is always sharp outside when she is bleeding inside, and Dag reminds her,

 

 

   “This is the Waste.”

 

 

   “But the count - ” Toast begins, and Dag lays her hand across Toast's mouth.

 

 

   “They all came Home. Green or red, they'll all live now, some forever, just like they wanted. It's enough,” she tells her sisters, and Toast settles and puts her forehead on Dag's shoulder, nestles close.

 

 

   “Stitch says the whole Doof Rig crew will live,” Cheedo says after a moment, into the dark, Words none of them really understand other than that there won't be any Death in them,

 

 

   “If they're watched.”

 

 

   “Then we watch them,” Dag says simply, because if watching is enough to keep Death at bay, there are eyes enough in the Citadel now for it.

 

 

   Toast grunts, but she turns her head to listen for the War Boy's breathing all the same, like Dag is doing, more counting, except now it's all Life instead of Losses.

 

 

   “I didn't know the Herald was blind,” Cheedo whispers into Dag's ear, as if it's secret, but nothing's secret this close in the dark, and Toast huffs.

 

 

   “Blind? There aren't any blind Boys - they wouldn't survive. Must have happened in the crash. Might as well be dead,” she tells Cheedo, and Cheedo shakes her head stubbornly although Toast can't see her.

 

 

   “He's eyeless,” she insists,

 

 

   “There was blood when they brought him in, and I thought - but the Boys said he's always been eyeless, they swabbed him down proper to show me and there just... isn't anything. No scars, just holes.”

 

 

   “Born eyeless is born useless,” Toast lectures,

 

 

   “They wouldn't bring an eyeless with the War Party. It's a mistake.”

 

 

   “They'd bring the Herald,” Cheedo argues,

 

 

   “They did bring him - we heard him! He was on the Doof Rig because it's his, I was told!”

 

 

   “Joe never would have given an eyeless a whole Rig to command!” Toast insists, and Cheedo props herself up so she can glare down at Toast and tell her,

 

 

   “The Doof Rig's not for doing War like that! It's what brings the sound of it and plays their orders - the Medical Boys told me about it! You need eyes to do War, not to play War for the Boys, and he's the only one who can!”

 

 

   “Play War how?” Toast demands as always to know what she doesn't already, and Cheedo shrugs and lies back down in the crook of Dag's arm, lifting her hands to make a vague shape in the air above their heads to explain,

 

 

   “They brought this thing in with him - it had two long bits and lots of strings and they had to do something so it wouldn't shoot fire in case we touched it - he plays War on that. They called it the Axe - I think Angharad might have called it a guitar, but it wasn't like one of hers, maybe another Instrument - and they said that's what he uses to play War.”

 

 

   “That noise, with the drums?” Toast asks in consternation,

 

 

   “That's what you mean?”

 

 

   “It's his Voice,” Dag breathes, rapturous, to the stars she can't see,

 

 

   “It must be his Voice, like we used to hear!”

 

 

   Her sisters' quarrel is nothing, nothing but smoke on the breeze, if the Herald lives, and she hears it, but it is a haze on the horison, just empty clouds in the sky...

 

 

   She asked once, in the Vault, just a prisoner, a Moon-bloom wilting in a hot-house glare - _what is that sound on the air, what makes the glass hum and the earth shake and my blood froth and my heart soar, what sounds like Hope and Freedom?_

 

 

_What's that sound like the sky screaming and the Towers toppling and the pain of real beauty?_

 

 

   “Pay it no mind, sweet girl, that's the Herald lighting a fire under those dreadful Boys - it's just War music,” Miss Giddy had said.

 

 

_That sound that's flooding my eyes and pulling my strings, that furious distraction of self - a Herald? Is it their call to build the pyres?_

 

 

   “Sit down lovely, don't let it upset you,” Miss Giddy had soothed, nervous, and Dag had understood it better then, the Words of this song.

 

 

   Her soul was vibrating - her limbs had to follow suit -

 

 

   “It's their call to arms, my flower, that's all it is, come cover your ears and don't fret,” Miss Giddy had begged, but there had been no choice but movement when the sound marched along Dag's spine, when it reached for her so stubbornly, more flattering than all the Words she'd ever been coated with by vile mouths, more alive than anything she had ever known -

 

 

   Dag had not danced since the Caging.

 

 

   She danced then.

 

 

   She has always danced since, when the Herald sang.

 

 

   His Voice may have been meant to light a fire under the Boys, but Dag felt - she _Knew_ \- that this was the last true Music of the World, and that it was also for her, and for anyone else who could understand the Words hidden inside it.

 

 

   Running had been painful to her only for knowing that it was to leave behind the only Voice that had ever reached for her since the Caging and understood her reply. The only presence in this broken place that spoke to Dag in the songs of her people, in the beats of her heart, in the crawl of her skin, in the glare of glass.

 

 

   That was the vicious vexation on the Road - the wrenching pain of being pursued by the only thing she had not taken with her that she would have longed to keep - knowing that now she'd never be close enough to truly feel it with every part of her, that her chance was lost, that she would never Hear that Voice in its purest truth.

 

 

   Brutal and without compromise but beautiful - like the beat of the Great Swells in the depths of her mind and around the stars.

 

 

   The Voice that made the walls of the world shake the way that false god _schlanger_ could only dream of.

 

 

   “He lives?” she prays, and there's a tremble to her skin, eyes running over,

 

 

   “There'll still be Music?”

 

 

   “He's just been bashed about, needs to sleep healing, but he'll be fine, Stitch said he would have been strung up and that must have helped - I didn't understand that part, but whatever it means, it kept him mostly safe,” Cheedo's voice is confident and her hands spread love over Dag's and this is all the prayers she spoke to the night reaching for her by starlight again.

 

 

   “But - Dag it was so strange - all the Boys were so pleased he's not dead, and to me he looks like a monster,” Cheedo continues, conviction faltering, an edge of fear cutting the velvet-cloth softness of this revelation, this gift,

 

 

   “His mouth... I'm glad he didn't wake up.”

 

 

   “What's wrong with it?” Toast asks sharply, practical, and Cheedo makes an uncertain sound, burrows closer to Dag's side, tells them like she's afraid,

 

 

   “It's so ugly...”

 

 

   “All those Boys are ugly,” Toast shrugs off as nothing, water off a duck's back, and Dag has never seen an Old World duck, but she knows that Toast sounds like the picture she read on the paper page painted in Words.

 

 

   “Nux isn't so ugly,” Cheedo says tentatively,

 

 

   “The scars are just so...”

 

 

   “They're all scarred,” Toast points out,

 

 

   “This Doof Herald scarred too?”

 

 

   “No, it's not scars, it's just... Like Wretched-wrongness... I don't want to hear his voice. It must be horrible coming out of that mouth,” Cheedo shudders.

 

 

   “But they gave him his Voice back, so it wouldn't be,” Dag sighs, the joy of it flowing on tears, that Music won't be buried in the Silent Field with the other starvelings, that she won't look upon the face that sings with that Voice for the first time for the last time,

 

 

   “The stars haven't lost their conduit.”

 

 

   “The Axe-thing wasn't broken either, they said,” Cheedo agrees as she sometimes does when she thinks she only half-understands Dag's words,

 

 

   “And if he's never had eyes I think he can still play it like he used to.”

 

 

   “You'll be dancing again in no time, Dag,” Toast says mirthlessly, with an edge to her that means she knows she's funny but it wasn't meant to be, but Dag's laugh is not for that.

 

 

   If she hadn't legs to dance with anymore, she would still rejoice.

 

 

   The Herald lives. The stars will sing again.

 

 

   Now she knows her prayers have been Heard.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

 

   There are Medical Boys who come to see Nux, to speak to Capable who must Speak today, announce that the Salvage will go on, and a Numbers Boy comes for Toast to that end, but Dag is not going with the Pups to the field, not yet.

 

 

   “I want to see him,” Dag says, and waits for Cheedo to put down her water and understand. She knows when she has, because her face grows concerned.

 

 

   “He might not be awake,” Cheedo cautions, but surely that is not important?

 

 

   “Would that be terrible?” Dag asks her, because the only blood on her hands is pushed under her nails - it is cut with earth, not straight from the source but a mere relic of Life, and she doesn't know when sleep is no longer safe and good for the healing.

 

 

   “No,” Cheedo says carefully,

 

 

   “But I don't want you to be disappointed.”

 

 

   “Only the dead upset me - sleeping won't disappoint,” Dag tells her with smiles, but Cheedo is not convinced - she twists her hands.

 

 

   “Medical is very full, so you can't stay,” she warns Dag, but it is not a problem.

 

 

   Dag doesn't plan to stay. She plans to see this Herald in the flesh, more than a Voice filtered through stone and glass and the hard Road behind her.

 

 

   “I won't stay,” she promises Cheedo,

 

 

   “I have beds to make and Boys to tuck in. I just want to know his face.”

 

 

   Cheedo accepts this without protest, and it is half the battle.

 

 

   Dag is not prepared for the way the rot of Death and the bitterness of fear clings to the walls of Medical, so thick it must clog and choke all the weeping flayed flesh around them here, those brought back who could be Salvaged.

 

 

   So many faces.

 

 

   Dag watches them closely, wants to know them again if they come to her for planting, either to help or to Grow Silent.

 

 

   Boys on their feet greet Cheedo with reverence, here, deeper than anywhere else yet - her Name is different here, a truer reflection of who she is now without someone's boot at the back of her neck pushing her down - and one Boy comes to her at once, tells her numbers.

 

 

   Boys whom Dag will be planting later today.

 

 

   Cheedo's cheeks shine wet to hear it. Her tears echo in the voices of the Boys who see them, their awe.

 

 

   “The Doof-Warrior,” she asks when the Boy has no more numbers for her, the words still shaky with newness,

 

 

   “My sister wants to see him. Is he any better?”

 

 

   “Kept watch special, Sister Cheedo,” the Boy promises, then hastens to clarify,

 

 

   “Not Medicals - we had worse to watch - but Mother Bedrock watched him, an' his sparker from the Garage offered. He's still here.”

 

 

   “Thank you, Stitch - I'll be along in a moment, I want to show Dag where he is,” Cheedo says kindly, and Dag is proud of this girl for taking her own place in the world and refusing to be afraid of it even though all she's holding is Dag's hand in hers.

 

 

   “Right - ” the Boy nods, nervous, looking at Dag with a quick jerk of his head, squinting like she's blinding him in this dimness,

 

 

   “Sisters,” he says with wonderment thick in his voice, and then he darts away to do his own work and leaves them to theirs.

 

 

   “He's over there,” Cheedo leads, sounding unsure, but Dag isn't.

 

 

   She knows as soon as she sees him - scarlet-clad, the Axe clasped over his breast, an Old World princeling laid out for his tomb, Moon-pale unpainted just like her, a mask at his feet.

 

 

   No other vessel could contain that Voice, she understands, imperfect and unequalled, flawless in divine difference.

 

 

   “Oh,” Dag gasps, and Cheedo bites her lip and frets, watching her.

 

 

   “Oh,” Dag sighs, coming a little closer, standing over the Boy knelt asleep in a heap by his side,

 

 

   “Oh, he's like you said,” she tells Cheedo, whose face crumples in apology, but Dag laughs with delight,

 

 

   “Just as you said! A perfect moon-calf!”

 

 

   Her laugh startles the Boy at her feet, and he snaps upright in shock, trembling and wide-eyed, and he gapes up at her and scrambles back into the stone slab the Herald has been laid out on, averting his eyes and cringing, whimpering,

 

 

   “'M sorry - 'm sorry - didn' mean t' look - didn' mean t' sleep - don' shred me, please, please, 'm not useless yet - was jus' restin' m'eyes - ”

 

 

   “No one is going to hurt you!” Cheedo cries in horror at the idea,

 

   “It's alright to sleep!”

 

 

   “Was s'posed t' be watchin' the Doof,” the Boy admits, cowering,

 

 

   “An' I was! I was, I jus' got tired, so I closed m'eyes for a bit - ”

 

 

   “I like a nice nap,” Dag says calmly, and his eyes snap to her in astonishment and then slide away again immediately, hands coming up to poke at his face hard, and Cheedo's eyes fill with tears and panic as he mutters to himself,

 

 

   “Not meant t' look, bad, useless - sleepin' on the job - ”

 

 

   Dag settles onto her knees in front of him and puts a hand on his leg, the fabric of his trousers rough and grimy under her fingers, pockets full of metal. She feels Cheedo flank her closely, feels her little hands flutter over Dag's hair with worry.

 

 

   “Why did you offer to watch him if you're too tired to prop up your lids?” she asks him patiently, and he seems to notice that she is now on his level, because the shock shrieks from his face the same way his voice does not and he pulls his hands away from their hurting.

 

 

   “Crew's all bashed - 'm Doof's sparker - wanted t' help,” he mumbles, staring unblinkingly at her. It looks very like someone very thirsty shrivelling in the waste heat drinking the last drops they have, but guilty of it.

 

 

   “How do you spark?” Dag wants to know, and he wiggles his fingers vaguely in an attempt at explanation, face ploughed with confusion.

 

 

   “'S wires - wires an' things, y' connect 'em so it all sparks together right,” he tries, and she nods.

 

 

   It makes perfect sense.

 

 

   “Who are you, sparker of the Doof?”

 

 

   “Seven,” he tells her hazily, eyes twitching with the effort to blink, lizard-glazed, and Dag smiles.

 

 

   “Lovely hands, Seven. I imagine they weave sparks very well indeed,” she tells him, but he snatches them behind his back and shakes his head, closing his eyes with shame.

 

 

   “'M sorry - they're not right - 'm all rusted - an' you're Sisters,” he berates himself, and Dag looks up at Cheedo who is as confused as she is, and then Dag understands.

 

 

   “Oh,” she notices the gouges on his brow, and then reaches for his arm and pulls it towards her to show Cheedo - betwixt finger and thumb - and he's right, he's seven,

 

 

   “But they're just a little battered - sparks must have flown,” she concludes, and he stares at her in helpless awe.

 

 

   “Organic wouldn' fix 'em,” he explains, although there's no need, and his eyes are locked where Dag has hold of the edge of his glove,

 

 

   “So I tried.”

 

 

   “You are not a bush to be pruned, Seven,” Dag tells him primly,

 

 

   “You are what the earth made you. What's more hand for the holding?”

 

 

   “'S no good for salutin',” he laments, and then he ducks his head and mumbles,

 

 

   “Really didn' mean t' sleep. 'M sorry for failin'.”

 

 

   “Were you left behind sick?” Cheedo asks him gently, and Dag releases his hand. It flops onto the ground unchecked. His nod is miserable.

 

 

   “Yes, Sister Cheedo. Wasn' any good t' anyone on the Road,” he confesses, then ardently appeals,

 

 

   “Wasn' useless though! 'M a better spark than anythin' - did lots here while everyone was gone!”

 

 

   “No wonder you were tired then,” Cheedo replies, so kind, and his smile is Hope.

 

 

   “Thank you for watching the Herald,” Dag tells him,

 

 

“Your eyes must have watched well to be so tired today.”

 

 

   If the smile he gave Cheedo was Hope, the expression he offers Dag is some other, softer, more vulnerable Word. Dag will find it if she fishes the Swells long enough though - she always does.

 

 

   “Didn' fail?” he asks faintly, disbelieving,

 

 

   “Not even sleepin'?”

 

 

   “You did very well,” Cheedo says stoutly, but when Dag says nothing because her sister has already spoken and her words are so true, his mouth pinches and his eyes go gloomy at her, so Dag nods.

 

 

   The gloom clears.

 

 

   “Gotta be useful,” he says earnestly,

 

 

   “Use up my Time good!”

 

 

   “This was a very good use of your time,” Cheedo agrees carefully, and Dag smiles - she agrees when she doesn't understand, always has done.

 

 

   “He thinks he's dying,” she remarks idly, and Seven curls his knees up and clutches them.

 

 

   “Wasn' really sleepin' jus' now - no night fevers,” he explains dully, looking away, and Dag tilts her head to look him in the eye.

 

 

   “They'd have to be early morning fevers to have gotten you this time,” she points out, and he sighs sadly.

 

 

   “Tried that - jus' sleepin' bits at firs' light. Doesn' work. Night fevers is night fevers - comes with sleepin' - so I know I wasn',” he tells them.

 

 

   “And you weren't snoring, so you can't have been asleep now can you,” another voice says, quiet and distant, and Cheedo starts, looks around, but Dag knows, she knows -

 

 

   It flows into her head like water, calms the Swells.

 

 

   The Herald spoke.

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

 

   “Doof!” Seven scrambles past Dag and Cheedo, his exclamation reckless with joy, and he pats the Herald's arm exuberantly and grins fit to split,

 

 

   “Doof you'll never believe - the Immortan's dead! Furiosa an' the Sisters killed him - tore his face off, shredded 'im good - an' - ”

 

 

   “Seven, where is she?” the Herald demands, not quite panicked, fingers grasping for something, and Seven immediately reaches down and grabs the mask with surprising reverence and deposits it directly into the searching hand, soothing,

 

 

   “Righ' here, don' worry - Salvage Boys knew t' bring it - 's been righ' here with you.”

 

 

   Dag rises slowly, peering at the mask - it's almost a face, she thinks, and knows Cheedo can see it from the way she steps behind Dag, twisting her mouth into upset. The Herald's hands hold the ugly thing carefully, assessing it for damage, and then set it lightly by his side away from prying eyes and crushing limbs, and finally he asks,

 

 

   “Crew?”

 

 

   “Bit bashed, restin' like you, all gonna live,” Seven reports dutifully, confusion pouting his lips, and he repeats as though the Herald didn't hear him, like he wants to be very sure that he did,

 

 

   “Doof - Immortan's dead. Shredded good an' proper. An' Rictus, an' - an' it's a new world, Doof. 'S got Mothers in it.”

 

 

   The Herald's fingers cease their caressing of the Axe, and he tips his head towards Seven. If he had eyes, Dag thinks, there'd be Hope in them, but instead it's on his lips.

 

 

   “Free?” he breathes, like someone could steal it from his lungs, and Seven nods and says confidently,

 

 

   “Everyone's free now - 's like the Sisters say - no one's things anymore!”

 

 

   “No one?” the Herald asks painfully, and Dag wonders how you cry without eyes.

 

 

   “No one!” Seven says happily, then looks back and up at Dag and Cheedo, fretful, wants to be told,

 

 

   “That's right, isn't it? Even War Boys?”

 

 

   “That's right,” Cheedo tells him staunchly, insistent despite how she keeps Dag between her and them, casts fearful looks at the Herald, watching for a reaction,

 

 

   “People are not Things, and you're people too.”

 

 

   The Herald looks directly at Cheedo when she speaks - and she hides behind Dag more fully, as if to protect herself, but there's no need, Dag thinks, no need when his face is all wonder, and his voice is soft in the asking,

 

 

   “Who..?” His tongue is rough only because the sun has sucked him dry, sand-scoured inside and out, no succour for the abandoned, Dag hears, and she thinks were it not for that, this voice of his would play as sweet as his other sings star-fire cacophonies.

 

 

   Dag wonders why Cheedo cannot see it when it dances so clearly in the space between them, but her sister shies away as if all her newfound strength is nothing in the face of a face that displeases.

 

 

   “They're Sisters, Doof,” Seven enlightens him, glancing up for their approval, and Cheedo nods over Dag's shoulder quickly, widening his grin,

 

 

   “There's Sisters now - four of 'em - an' you got two here to see you!”

 

 

   “Sisters...” the word is a test, plumbing the Swells of Time and Memory, and Dag wonders where the old schlanger ever found such a Moonbeam Boy, where in this world such Voices could possibly grow - it would have been just like the old bastard to raid some last bastion of the Old World to snatch Music for himself to cage and control.

 

 

   “The ones the War Party wen' after,” Seven explains awkwardly, eyes darting to Dag and Cheedo to ward off any offence they might take, but Cheedo is watching the Herald taste the air on cracked lips and Dag says nothing, so he tries,

 

 

   “The ones the Parties were s'posed t' bring back, they - they brought themselves back, an' now no one's things anymore an' we've got Mothers an' Sisters an' - an' it's better, Doof, it's all better now!”

 

 

   The Herald's brow creases like driven furrows in the Road, and he fingers the Axe as if to calm himself, voice still so quiet when he says,

 

 

   “I never Heard...”

 

 

   Dag understands. Why tell the mouthpiece of a false god anything but what orders to let ring out over the waste? Why give him even the power of knowing to what end he is forced to relay them?

 

 

   To tether such a Voice to one's service is dangerous - lash him to the prow blind and unknowing, Old Joe would have, that's just what he'd do, use it as an extension of himself, more dust and plastic to cover up his own deficiencies.

 

 

   The Herald is a Trophy and a Tool, same as she was to the vile old schlanger, just another thing to be used up and tossed aside when the use grew dull or ran out. Perhaps if he'd ever lasted long enough for his fingers to wear to bone, he'd have been discarded with as little ceremony as she and the others - eyeless doesn't have to mean useless, but it could mean helpless, wandering in the dark without even the stars as a guide.

 

 

   It's so like the stars to choose someone who will never see them as their Voice...

 

 

   Seven darts another look up at Cheedo, nervous still, and he ventures,

 

 

   “Stitch said t' water 'im when he woke up - 's it alright?”

 

 

   “Yes - yes of course,” Cheedo exclaims, startled out of her own nerves, and her hand goes to her side but finds nothing, and she asks,

 

 

   “Do you have - ?”

 

 

   Seven's face contorts in confusion and certainty, and he shakes his head - one ear flaps loose -

 

 

   “Not allowed,” he apologises, and Cheedo breathes relief at having a task, sadness at this harsh old rule, and she grasps at a chance to away with purpose.

 

 

   “I'll fetch it!”

 

 

   “Sister Cheedo's the one who brought us Mothers,” Seven tells the Herald as she leaves, a duty and an honour that he's proud to Know and relay,

 

 

   “She's been helpin' the Medicals - givin' blood an' water - we all get watered now, an' no one gets scrapped or tossed, or left on the Road - ”

 

 

   His breathing is shaky, and he scrubs his face with a gloved wrist, smearing black across his nose, and Dag feels her fingers twitch to draw it downwards into something meaningful, bless him visibly.

 

 

   The Herald's lips quirk.

 

 

   “Didn't I tell you, that's what Mothers are for...” he reminds the shivering Boy, and Seven nods solemnly, agrees,

 

 

   “Know y' did - jus' didn' think we'd ever have any - or Sisters neither, 'cept I didn' know what those were an' now I do an' they're the shiniest, Doof, wish we'd all known!”

 

 

   “We are glad to know you, too. We came to stay,” Dag promises them, and then she catches herself realising - these are the first Words she has spoken to him and perhaps they aren't enough, perhaps their Meaning is insufficient -

 

 

   The Herald's fingers move at the sound of her voice, over strings, pulling a low, thrumming wail from the Axe as if it came from Dag's own chest, something she couldn't have voiced herself, but it uses up her breath as if she did and she can see that he didn't mean to call her, can feel everyone's eyes on them, now.

 

 

   His are the only that seem to see her, and it's funny because of course they don't.

 

 

   She'd smile and laugh if only he weren't looking.

 

 

   Seven flinches - not the only Boy who does - and it occurs to Dag that what they hear is the Voice of War, their call to arms only half-begun and swiftly silenced, and she understands how that might unsettle them, that they didn't see and couldn't hear that the Herald's fingers slipped when she spoke, that her own voice unsettled because it was unexpected.

 

 

   She'd like to touch them. Perhaps they swallowed the sound they made and stilled so hastily and it lives there yet...

 

 

   “He didn' mean to, Sister,” Seven swallows fearfully, and she wonders whether this sound is an order they all know, an imperative they are used to obeying, and how strange that is to think when it called to her, too.

 

 

   “Just beaten air...” the Herald murmurs, another Memory, as if to calm himself, but his hands are clenched tight around the neck of the Axe as if he could throttle the Voice that seemed to speak to her without his willing it, and Dag hopes he can't and wishes he'd speak again, perhaps if she -

 

 

   “Oh - please, please don't do that? The Boys need to sleep,” Cheedo pleads softly, returning with a flask she quickly passes to Seven, who fumbles it mainly to avoid her fingers, and hastens to assure her,

 

 

   “We're sorry, Sister Cheedo - Doof didn' mean to, promise!”

 

 

   “It's alright,” Cheedo whispers with as much confidence as can be had when she is hiding behind Dag, but her clutching is good enough in making her pat the little hands instead of reaching for the Herald, because if her voice startled him enough to speak without wishing to, she can't think what a sudden touch might do...

 

 

   Seven drips water carefully onto the Herald's lips, soaking his tongue, makes no attempt to give him the flask, and Dag wonders if his fingers are also hallowed beyond Seven's reach, thinks they must be, and then thinks on her own.

 

 

   She is not ready to consider that they might be of the same kind.

 

 

   “A little din won't daunt their ears, Cheedo,” she tells her gently,

 

 

   “They've heard him rival the tempest in the skies - this can't compare.”

 

 

   “No,” Cheedo mumbles, unsure, and Dag puts an arm around her and sways in place a little to soothe her, and the Herald flickers his fingers at Seven, an unspoken request for him to lean away.

 

 

   “Both Names..?” he asks for, and Seven screws up his face and recites,

 

 

   “Sister Cheedo, an'... uh...”

 

 

   “I'm The Dag,” she says, a flutter of breath, hoping, and his hand moves again, but not towards the strings.

 

 

   “Sisters,” Seven insists, fretful, awaiting the Words they are all unlearning, and Dag waits for them in turn,

 

 

   “Not - not Wives anymore - Wives was prisoners, wasn' righ' - we know that now, they told us - ”

 

 

   “The songbirds in the great cage,” the Herald murmurs pensively,

 

 

   “I thought they must be beating their wings against the glass, so close to the sky...”

 

 

  He tips his head up a little, towards them, and asks,

 

 

   “Did you scream, too?”

 

 

   “Not nearly so well as you,” Dag admits with regret, and there's a delight in his face that spills from his mouth and makes Cheedo cringe when he asks,

 

 

   “You heard me?”

 

 

   “Oh, yes,” Dag breathes intently, moving forward despite herself,

 

 

   “You're the one who cries Havoc!”

 

 

   Cheedo hides her face in Dag's hair to find enough blind bravery to chirp,

 

 

   “Our teacher used to call you the Herald.”

 

 

   His broken mouth seems to break further over the smile he offers.

 

 

   “More of a harbinger,” he replies, hesitates, wishes,

 

 

   “Is there any use for such a thing in your brave new world?”

 

 

   “There will always be a place for Music in any world,” Dag declares, soft with the grief of near-loss,

 

 

   “But this one is still cruel. I can't speak for War - I haven't a Voice like yours - but if you'd rather not speak of it, if you'd prefer the silence, no one will ever force you. We promise. No one is a thing to be used.”

 

 

   “What does a voice like yours speak for?” he appeals to her, but as if to himself, as if he can't quite be sure what he thinks he's hearing, and Dag feels the pulling again.

 

 

   “The earth and what it grows - the stars the growths reach for,” she tells him, as surely as she can, and a lightness comes over him.

 

 

   “Then I'll give you mine for all the rest, if you want it,” he promises her, and it bites at her fingers and sips at her breath, and she feels the Swells settle in her breast, calm and sweet.

 

 

   “Thank you,” she replies, fluttering like cloth in the slip of a motion, to think she could call upon such a sound even without mastering it herself is a freedom equal only to that which the sound itself once promised through walls, and it makes her want to dance again, twirl herself sick and silly.

 

 

   “You have nothing to thank me for,” he says softly, and she smiles.

 

 

   “If I haven't now, I will have, but trust me that I do,” she requests, and he breathes a shallow breath, and says,

 

 

   “Then will you use my Name?”

 

 

   “Doof?” she queries, trying it, and he runs one finger almost the length of the string closest to her, soundless.

 

 

   “Coma,” he tells her,

 

 

   “My Mother Named me Coma.”

 

 

   “Coma,” she echoes, feeling it settle,

 

 

   “Call me Dag.”

 

 

   “The Light of Day a Dagger in the Dawn,” he intones under his breath, and it sounds...

 

 

   Like no Words ever spoken within her reach, but as if they were always hers.

 

 

   The silence between them is so loud that at first she doesn't hear Cheedo tugging at her snarled braids, feel her voice against her skin saying,

 

 

   “You can't stay - we have things to do...”

 

 

   “Yes...” she echoes,

 

 

   “Things to do...”

 

 

   Seven shifts restlessly, fidgeting, and sucks his fingertips dry until Cheedo chides,

 

 

   “Stop that, don't suck the black ones - grease isn't good for you.”

 

 

   “'S mos'ly spark-smoke, Sister,” he promises,

 

 

   “Don' use much grease.”

 

 

   “Well... be careful with it. Will you water the Herald?” she asks, dubious,

 

 

   “And then please get some sleep. You'll make yourself sicker if you don't.”

 

 

   It's all a slosh of water in Dag's ears, but it disrupts the silence, the flow of nothings she is sailing, and so she tells the Herald softly,

 

 

   “Drink up and put out fresh roots, Coma. Thank you for living.”

 

 

   “Never so much as now,” he replies with a slicing smile,

 

 

   “Or from now on. Thank you.”

 

 

    Dag feels Cheedo dragging at her insistently, but she can't help returning his smile, reaching out...

 

 

   Seven bows his head to them both with a murmured reverence and moves in front of the Herald once more, to finish watering him, and Dag just floats away.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

  
  
  
    She feels like she's been planting for days.  
  
  
    Planting and counting, planning and hoping.  
  
  
    Numbers are everywhere, in everything - she's never had to hear so many or understand them so well before, but she knows that they mean that even with all the Boys she's tucked in and sent Sailing, the Citadel needs the fields to grow strong and fast.  
  
  
    Everyone needs feeding, everyone needs to live Better. They have to be Better. There has to be enough for everyone, finally enough.  
  
  
    She prays over the Silent Field first and last thing every day, and helps elsewhere when she can, learning the older fields, too, and how to care for them, and the aquifer system, looking over the knowledge Keeper left, the books from the Vault.  
  
  
    “The Herald's going Up today,” Cheedo tells her one morning,  
  
  
    “Stitch says he's safe to be alone.”  
  
  
    “Alone?” Dag asks, because she has been thinking of the Herald, but she has not been counting the days amidst all the other numbers, other worries, and this news is unwelcome, unhelpful, upsetting.  
  
  
    “He doesn't sleep with the other Boys,” Cheedo reveals,  
  
  
    “He has his own rooms - still on that side, but on his own. Seven said it's always been like that. He only comes Down to play War.”  
  
  
    “That's wrong,” Dag feels in her bones, angry now,  
  
  
    “Brought down, he'd have been. Well he's good for more than that - he's not a tool, he doesn't belong in a trophy case! If we're Better than that, then so is he!”  
  
  
    “Maybe it's safer?” Cheedo suggests timidly, has always hated Dag's anger,  
  
  
    “Since he's blind?”  
  
  
    “Oh, no - you wait and see - there'll be a lock on that cage, mark me,” Dag hisses,  
  
  
    “It may not be a Vault, but it'll be a place for one of Joe's prize pieces all the same.”  
  
  
    “I'm sure it's not so bad - the way they talk, it sounds like he's always been special, taken care of - ” Cheedo tries, and Dag's laugh is loud with scorn.  
  
  
    “You think the High Life he got at Joe's hand was any better than ours because he wasn't Touched? You've tasted free air now - don't defend a caging by another name!” she warns, and Cheedo bites her lip, chastened.  
  
  
    “I'm sorry, I didn't think... Of course he'd want to be free,” she sees,  
  
  
    “He should be. Everyone should be.”  
  
  
    “And they will,” Dag proclaims,  
  
  
    “We'll make it so. I'll inspect this cage myself.”  
  
  
    There seem to be as many Boys in Medical as when last she came Down, but there is less blood in the air, and less rot - she supposes it must have been cleared and brought to her for burial, Time making its differences - but she finds herself looking into faces all the same, hopeful to see many of the same as before.  
  
  
    There are also new faces - faces without faces but tailed instead - and a row that was not here before. Cheedo's squeak of surprise and the hand she snaps to Dag's wrist tells Dag that this is also new to her, but at the heart of it is the Herald, risen still-red, now masked, but swaying amidst the harsh voices, Seven at his back, first to spot Dag and Cheedo, eyes wet and wide.  
  
  
    “ - keep him here - ”  
  
  
    “ - have room for - ”  
  
  
    “ - let him - ”  
  
  
    “ - shouldn' be - ”  
  
  
    “ - crew, whatta you know, runt - ”  
  
  
    “Sisters!” someone shouts, and Dag sees Seven steady the Herald, Stitch whipping round to face she and Cheedo, face taut with anger and concern, and he breathes,  
  
  
    “Sisters, 'm sorry for the noise - 's the Doof Crew, they - ”  
  
  
    “Ain't stayin' here,” one of the faceless snaps, and Stitch turns his head and barks at him wordlessly, a snarl of warning, but another faceless steps forward menacingly, and Dag sees Seven whisper frantically to the Herald, eyes darting quick, a Mother by a sleeping Boy's side a few steps away shrinking against the stone in fright, and Dag feels the Swells break in her head, building since the talk of cages.  
  
  
    “Enough!” she thunders, surprised at herself, sees the Herald shudder and Seven flinch, Cheedo's hand painful around her wrist now, and the faceless fall back between her and the Herald, watch her as one, waiting, so she gives them something worth waiting for.  
  
  
    “I came Down for the Herald, sirs, and today is not a day to cross my path - I'll be deaf to your squabbles until you raise your hands again and then not a single seedling will your remains ever feed in this or any Life!”  
  
  
    They press among themselves with unease, and she is unrepentant, but Stitch sees his chance and takes it to say,  
  
  
    “The Doof Warrior can't stay - we don' have the space when he just needs to rest up - but the crew won' hear it, and most of them have to stay a few more days!”  
  
  
    “Let the runt take the Coma-Doof Warrior smeg knows where alone when he can' hardly stand alone yet - 's not happenin'!” spits the faceless Stitch snarled at, and Dag points at him and makes it Known,  
  
  
    “You'll speak bagless or not at all. So I'll Know which face to miss.”  
  
  
    No one moves but Dag feels the hostility oil the Swells.  
  
  
    The Herald speaks - tongue harsher than she has yet heard, and it makes her shiver.  
  
  
    “Clamour. Address the Ladies maskless or I'll snap your sticks. See if I trust you behind me again when you'd take those tones,” he warns, and Dag knows it's a threat, but it isn't one she understands - nevertheless she Knows its power and sees it in the way the faceless wrench off their hoods as one and the cautioned creature falls to the ground before her, arms raised in salute, pleading,  
  
  
    “Forgive me, Doof - forgive me, Bright Sister - I was wrong.”  
  
  
    “You were rude, you little smeg,” Dag corrects, and he nods, tongue between his teeth, one of the others dragging him up by the shoulders - they part for her gaze now, no impediment to the gleam of blue across the Herald's chest where the red is unfastened.  
  
  
    “If Stitch says there are no beds for rest, there are no beds,” is her asseveration,  
  
  
    “If you are bound to stay, you will stay until you are no longer at risk of coming to the Plantings.”  
  
  
    “But - lettin' the Doof leave still hurt - ” one murmurs, unsettled, another gnaws his lip and nudges his chastened comrade who fixes his gaze upon the ground, a third looks to Cheedo beseechingly, begs,  
  
  
    “Let us go and come back? Jus' t' be sure Doof's alright? His head's still rattled - we can' jus' send 'im with the runt - ”  
  
  
    “Seven,” Cheedo says sharply, and the hulking Baghead shrinks from her, Seven perking up like a watered flower at the Herald's side, gazing at Cheedo in amazement, and Dag leans into Cheedo with love, smiling when her sister adds,  
  
  
    “He watered the Herald when there was no one else to watch him - offered himself for it. What have any of you done except threaten Stitch for doing his job?”  
  
  
    None of them respond but to look away.  
  
  
    Dag reaches a hand to wave Seven onward, and her heart aches to see the care with which he supports the Herald, whose steps are heavy and wearied, the Axe a weight at his shoulder.  
  
  
    “Coma,” she calls softly, must know before she allows it,  
  
  
    “Tell me that we are not returning you to a cage?”  
  
  
    She can't see his face for the mask - it is a scream, she thinks, a thing of pain and sorrow, this thing he called 'She' - but his voice smiles behind it when he replies,  
  
  
    “The dark is a worse cage than any locked door in a place like this - put someone more broken than me down here for watching, someone who needs the watching more than I can afford to hate these walls.”  
  
  
    Dag knows exactly what he means, and so she asks,  
  
  
    “Seven, will you take us Up?”  
  
  
    “Yes, Sister, of course,” Seven tells her eagerly, and when there is dissent from the un-hooded she lets them Know,  
  
  
    “If you cannot trust your Brother, Trust me. Not even you have better cause to see the Herald safe than I. Now get back to your beds - if you perish for lack of them Believe that you'll have none from my hands.”  
  
  
    Their eyes are alight with something she does not know, but the Herald turns to them and orders,  
  
  
       “Lay down your arms - broken ones are no use to anyone. I'm going Up safer than you're staying down here. You're all battered worse than I ever was.”  
  
  
    They salute him, although he cannot see it, but he must know, because he signals with one hand, something Dag has never seen before, two-pronged like the Axe, and they dissipate, one helped by a Mother, leg twisted under him.  
  
  
    “They're loyal,” Cheedo says quietly, and the Herald hums.  
  
  
    “Afraid for me. Of me. Everything is altered except me - they don't know where to turn,” he tells her, fatigue ripe in his words, and Cheedo nods thoughtfully.  
  
  
    “I won't have them turn on each other - they're all Brothers,” she says firmly,  
  
  
    “I'll see them healed both ways before long, you wait!”  
  
  
    “I believe you, Little Sister of Gifts,” he replies softly,  
  
  
    “Don't be afraid to take away their toys if they misbehave.”  
  
  
    “I won't be afraid anymore,” Cheedo promises herself, and then leans in to kiss Dag's cheek, leaving her alone with Seven and the Herald, whose breath Dag can hear, laboured behind the silenced scream.  
  
  
    “'M sorry, Sister Dag - bein' in the way - ” Seven mumbles now that they are unwatched, slouching and fidgeting, but not releasing the Herald's arm,  
  
  
    “Jus' pretend like I'm not here, won' say a word, promise.”  
  
  
    “Why shouldn't you?” Dag wants to know, and he blinks like she's asked something complex. She doesn't think she has, but it happens that she does without knowing it until the other cannot provide an answer.  
  
  
    “Well... 'M not... 'M jus' here for helping. Not for talkin',” Seven tries, and Dag smiles.  
  
  
    “Talking can be very helpful,” she points out,  
  
  
    “I don't think I will ignore you.”  
  
  
    “Thank you, Sister,” Seven tells her, overwhelmed, ducking his head, and they begin to move towards the halls, where the air is fresher.  
  
  
    “First we go to this Up, then I am for the field,” Dag informs them idly, matching her steps to theirs, to the Herald's, slow and pained,  
  
  
    “There are still Boys need putting to bed, coverlets to smooth.”  
  
  
    “Um - I heard,” Seven begins, then silences himself, glancing at her nervously.  
  
  
    “I'm glad your ears work,” Dag says, pleased, and he smiles.  
  
  
    “I heard - is it true you pray, for the Boys who died?”  
  
  
    “For them to live eternally,” Dag confirms vaguely, skin alight to the red by her side.  
  
  
    “Could - could you teach me?” Seven requests cautiously, and Dag wonders.  
  
  
    “You'd like to pray?”  
  
  
    “I'd like to know how,” Seven says earnestly.  
  
  
    “Never prayed to Old Joe?” she asks curiously, and Seven grimaces.  
  
  
    “That - that was differen',” he says quietly, ashamed,  
  
  
    “An' I - who d' you pray to?”  
  
  
    “Anyone who's listening,” Dag says simply,  
  
  
    “I like to give everyone a fair shake.”  
  
  
    “Think I'd like that,” Seven exhales soft admiration,  
  
  
    “An every-prayer... It sounds right...”  
  
  
    “I'll show you how,” Dag promises, and then has to ask,  
  
  
    “Did you ever pray for fixing?”  
  
  
    Seven looks down and they go a few steps without his reply before finally it comes, delivery small and shaky,  
  
  
    “Sorta gave up on tha'... This is my lot.”  
  
  
    “Consider,” Dag puts forth,  
  
  
    “Such prayers never bore fruit because there was no fruit to bear - no fixing needed.”  
  
  
    He doesn't look up, but she can see his lips move over her suggestion, and his eyes grow wet.  
  
  
    The sands are cleaner under their boots here, not so tacky, and Dag is busy noticing this when they turn a sharper corner than she had at first seen.  
  
  
    Her arm grazes the Herald's as he stumbles, and she reaches to steady him unthinkingly.  
  
  
    The red is warm to her touch but she shivers and draws back, wishes for some Word to keep the rags from his breath, wishes his face were bared to her.  
  
  
    “Here we go,” Seven announces, leading them to an opening in the rock, unlatching a door set there, and he releases the Herald, whose hands seek out stone.  
  
  
    “I'll - uh - be jus'...” Seven flaps his hand and then moves away down the narrow path they came by, enough steps that Dag knows how low her voice must be to remain between the Herald and herself.  
  
  
    He leans against the stone and reaches up, pulls his mask away, cradles it against his chest, temple to the edge of this doorway in the tower's innards. Behind him is darkness.  
  
  
    “I wish you weren't alone here,” she admits, and his smile is weary.  
  
  
    “I am always alone here - best thing for an aching head,” he replies, a quiet reassurance, and she finds her hands rising, fingers flickering too close, and she frowns at them.  
  
  
    “Believe me - I would rather be alone here with this than in that fetid reek,” he tells her seriously, and she nods silently, somehow forgetting that he can't see her because he sees her so deeply it pulls at her inside.  
  
  
    “I would rather you had clear air to breathe,” she allows, and he licks his lips and breathes deeply.  
  
  
    “Thank you, for coming Up - you're clearer in this air, too,” he reveals, and she doesn't know what her face looks like, but it mustn't matter.  
  
  
    “So you'd know it was me, even if I didn't speak?” she asks, half-teasing, and he smiles.  
  
  
    “I'd Know you, Lady Daylight,” he confirms, and the Swells swell for a moment, then break inside her brow when he adds in courtesy,  
  
  
    “I apologise for my crew. They'll learn.”  
  
  
    “We're all learning,” she replies, careful, folding her hands together, taking in the soft hollows where he'd be watching her if he only could. They're darkened - with grease perhaps, she doesn't know - and it should be macabre, is likely meant to be, but not to her.  
  
  
    “It ought to be a constant state,” he agrees, and then she feels the wickedness prick at her lips, and can't silence herself.  
  
  
    “Perhaps you'll learn better, too - given Time,” she trills, and he is struck, she sees, but then as gleeful as she is herself, and lastly piqued, intrigued, so she tells him what he doesn't know,  
  
  
    “I'm as much a Moon-child as you, Coma Doof-Warrior.”  
  
  
    “You're sure? Maybe I do belong in Medical - I'd swear you were soaked through with the Sun,” he teases in return, and she warms to it too quickly, covers her mouth, closes her eyes, and then calms herself and explains,  
  
  
    “From the Plantings - days and days of it, the fields...”  
  
  
    She sees understanding in his face, and then reveals what was her point,  
  
  
    “I'd never met another - but now we're neither of us alone in it.”  
  
  
    There is something too close in that, and so she steps away and clasps her arms across herself, tells him,  
  
  
    “I should go. Rest your head, Moon-Calf Boy - you've had too much Sun to be safe. I'll send Seven down with water later.”  
  
  
   “Thank you,” he tells her, a murmur, and she thinks it is weariness but there is something else there, and it stirs the Swells when his lips quirk and he says,  
  
  
    “Lady Dag.”  
  
  
    Her breath quickens before he disappears into the darkness and she runs to where Seven is crouched against the wall, fingers over ears and eyes.  
  
  
    “Take me to the Field, Seven,” she asks, wild, and he scrambles to her bidding.  
  
  
    All day, her fingers tingle.  
  
  



	6. Chapter 6

  
  
  
    She has consulted the books - the stars - those among them all who Know the earth -   
  
  
    Still the Field does not grow.  
  
  
    Nothing sprouts. Nothing greets her in the morning, or peeps at the afternoon.  
  
  
    The Fear is beginning to hurt - gnawing at her chest and worrying her fingertips.  
  
  
    Has she made the beds too hard? Or too soft? Too wet? Not wet enough?  
  
  
    Have they not seen enough of the Sun - or perhaps too much?  
  
  
    She prays and prays when her consultations offer nothing but assurance that she must be patient, that she has done all she can - but it is not enough.  
  
  
    If the Field does not grow, she has failed. There will be no Brave New World - no Truth will survive hunger where the promise was that there would be none, proof that their lives cannot themselves sustain Life when she promised that they could - and it is itself as fragile as a seedling, needs vigilant tending, care and prayer in abundance. Dag cannot fail in this, her part. She will not.  
  
  
    Still, the Swells grow dark indeed before she is willing to consider that what is required is a Voice greater than her own - more compelling. Something to scream down the stars.  
  
  
   She has tried, and hers will not reach so far. No one is Listening to her. She lacks the power to force them.  
  
  
    ...but not the power to ask one who can.  
  
  
    Her hesitation is born of how unexpectedly great her wish to do so has been - she does not distrust it so much as she fears it, this prickling of her skin at the thought of it, because it is not a feeling she knows from herself before now, nor a feeling she has heard tell of.  
  
  
    She'd half expect it to be some strange dream of hers to pass the time if it weren't for how she anticipates the news of the Herald's recovery, how it pleases her to be told that he does well, that he does better with each asking.  
  
  
    So at last she must do some asking of her own.  
  
  
    Seven takes her Across and Down - the Herald may be raised above common Boys, but not so far as she, or as far as the green she tends, and she does not yet know the way safely, once not enough to lay the path here sturdy in her mind, so she is grateful to be taken at her request.  
  
  
    “He'll be so pleased,” Seven tells her, grinning, hop-skipping ahead of her,  
  
  
    “Doesn' get many visitors - never did - an' he's been asking 'bout ya - ”  
  
  
    She does not gasp to hear it - it seems natural enough that he should, that he should be like all the rest in this, in these days, where all news seems to be of she and her sisters, but the way it's said -   
  
  
    Seven seems to realise, and he looks back to her and amends,  
  
  
    “'Bout all the Sisters - an' the changes, the new Truth... Doof used t' talk about Mothers, y' see. He had one, once,” he tells, and Dag wants the tale of it, but from different lips, wants to drink it from the source, add it to the Swells inside her, Know it in its fullness, whole and undiluted.  
  
  
    What woman could bring such a Voice into the World?  
  
  
    Someone worth remembrance, she doesn't doubt.  
  
  
    “You all had Mothers once, Seven - even the Earth,” she lets him know, and he sighs and pouts,  
  
  
    “Wish I'd've known 'er...”  
  
  
    “I am sure that she would feel the same,” Dag assures him, and he appears comforted, twirling to a halt before the door in the wall, and tells her,  
  
  
    “Thank you, Sister Dag - I hope so! I'll just...” he shuffles away as before, settles against the stone and folds into himself, and Dag thinks it looks restful in its own way, a snatching of sleep too brief to sicken, much-needed, and so she taps against the metal with prickling thumbs and tingling fingers, and hopes to be heard.  
  
  
    The latch that was here last she looked is gone - scorching where it sat all that's left. She's fiercely glad of it.  
  
  
    Another latch unfastens the door from the inside, and the Herald emerges, unmasked, like the Moon showing its face through a storm-cloud passing by, slow and careful, shy to be seen.  
  
  
    “Lady Dag,” he murmurs,  
  
  
    “To what do I owe this unexpected honour?”  
  
  
    “To Fear,” she admits,  
  
  
    “I would have come sooner, but for...” she cannot say that her fingers have itched since their parting, so she does not finish, but he nods, and she feels that perhaps he understands, although his fingers are still and calm.  
  
  
    “What are you afraid of?” he asks her softly, and she feels no shame at being afraid, only feels that she ought to have come sooner.  
  
  
    “The seeds I planted - I am afraid for them,” she confesses,  
  
  
    “I had hoped they'd begin to grow, but there's nothing, still, and no answer for it - I haven't the skill to look into the seeds of Time, to Know which will grow and when, but... I need to know that I've done everything I can for them, given them all I can give.”  
  
  
    “I don't doubt that you have,” he reassures her,  
  
  
    “And you can have anything of mine you think might help them to be given.”  
  
  
    “I have been praying for them,” Dag reveals, weak with relief that he won't refuse her out of hand,  
  
  
    “To anyone who would listen, but I'm afraid my Voice isn't enough anymore - that it doesn't reach the Heavens, can't penetrate the Swells. Could you play a prayer for them, if I brought you to the Field?”  
  
  
    “You think any prayer I could offer worth listening to would be heard over yours?” he asks her, not quite teasing, but amused, and she plucks the air with her fingers, threads them together in the hair blown across her breast, and entreats.  
  
  
    “I need to feel the Earth move, Coma - not enough to unmake the beds, I'm not asking for that - but enough, just enough to rattle the cages and bend the ears...”  
  
  
    “I can't promise that it will,” he tells her softly, frowning, but she Knows.  
  
  
    “If you can shake the Towers and scream down the dome, you can wake up the dead,” she insists, she believes,  
  
  
    “And you needn't even do that - just stir them enough to make them dance a little - push the greens through the ground!”  
  
  
    “We can try,” he agrees seriously, and she breathes deep in gratitude.  
  
  
    “Believe me, if you can make me dance from a distance, these seeds won't know what to do with themselves,” she says warmly, and his hands move strangely.  
  
  
    “You danced?” he asks her, a somehow fragile wish, and she grants it with,  
  
  
    “Always - always since the first Hearing.”  
  
  
    Even on the Road her feet had ached to dance - even after Angharad's loss, the anger would out through her boots on the ground while she could still hear him, despite the Fear of that nearness, what it meant, not War but the snatching of her newfound Freedom, soaked in blood as it was.  
  
  
    “I'll play you a prayer to shatter the firmament, if it might drown out the Fear,” he vows,  
  
  
    “But if those seedlings move for anyone, it will be for you. There's nothing I can say in any Voice that will have the power yours has over them - what children wouldn't dance if their Mother danced with them?”  
  
  
    “Is that what I am?” Dag asks, startled that he might Know this better than she, and his smile is fierce.  
  
  
    “You gave them Life,” he says with simple truth,  
  
  
    “You are their Mother.”  
  
  
    She hadn't thought this before, but of course, how could she be otherwise?  
  
  
    Somehow the course the Fear has taken turns for the deeper, and it catches at her breath, and she worries,  
  
  
    “You will pray, then?”  
  
  
    “We'll make them sit up and take notice,” he promises her with a wicked grin,  
  
  
    “I've played War too long - let's you and I pray, Lady Dag, and teach your seedlings to heed you.”  
  
  
    “Yes,” Dag breathes, exultant,  
  
  
    “You and I - I'll clear the Field - will you be ready by tonight?”  
  
  
    “With half the drummers left for wiring, I could do it within the hour,” he informs her briskly, and somehow she feels that this is part of his preparations, that already he is deciding how best to call her sleeping children to arms, how best to make the Gods raise them high and strong,  
  
  
    “We'll put on a show like nothing on Earth.”  
  
  
    “Oh - ” she frowns, unwilling to hold him back, but now uncertain their understanding is all it should be,  
  
  
    “I thought... Just you?”  
  
  
    “Yes,” he assures her, calm and certain where she is not,  
  
  
    “Just me.”  
  
  
   “Then they..?” she waits, and he shakes his head with a smile, promising,  
  
  
    “If I'm to move the earth for you to dance on, I'll need to be wired - Seven can't carry the amps to the Field by himself, that's for them to do. That's all they'll do. Just tell them where.”  
  
  
    “The black boxes?” she inquires, curious now, for Seven has spoken of them as if they were holy, and she knows of no other thing required for the Herald's work that is not the Axe, and none other is permitted to lay hands upon it unless his own haven't the strength to grasp it, she's been told.  
  
  
    “The same,” he tells her,  
  
  
    “They'll be sent up and wired up, on your word.”  
  
  
   “By tonight,” she decides, alight with anticipation, at this plan they have hatched to give the Heavens a talking-to,  
  
  
    “The Moon will have no choice but to notice.”  
  
  
   “Then let us put on a show,” the Herald proclaims, and she laughs the release of her concern.  
  
  
    “Thank you, Coma,” she trills, sailing free, on the wing, and he bows his head, smile a private thing.  
  
  
    “I'd play for you more gladly than for myself, even,” he confesses quietly, lifts his head to watch her still, poised with some unnamed feeling that prickles her fingers and warms her lips,  
  
  
    “For any reason, if you could be less afraid. If you could dance instead. I hope this helps.”  
  
  
    “It does,” she murmurs,  
  
  
    “It will. I know it will.”  
  
  
    “I believe you,” he tells her simply, and again she must draw back, but this time, she does not run at once, because his hand reaches out between them and then stops, and instead he holds it up to show her his empty palm, as if he could somehow sense her desire for flight, and he whispers,  
  
  
    “Please don't ever be afraid to ask me, Dag.”  
  
  
    “I'm not,” she promises, in all Truth, and blows him a silent kiss,  
  
  
    “I will see you tonight in the Field, Coma Earth-Mover,” she teases to cut the cord of sadness wound about them, and he folds his fingers towards his wrist and clasps his closed hand to his heart, smiling.  
  
  
    “Tonight, Lady Starlight,” he returns, and she finds she cannot turn her back as she moves away light-footed, soaring without the weight of Fear for the first time in days and days, until the darkness swallows him once more.  
  
  
    “Seven,” she cries as she follows the Swells on joyous airs,  
  
  
    “Tonight we dance!”

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

  
  
    “Drummers!” tiny voices pipe up, and Dag lifts her head from where she's been making the Circle and sees three Bagheads at the edge of the field, black boxes in their arms, Seven leading them, and the Pups who have been helping her in the fields peeling away from them in agitations, calling,  
  
  
    “Sister Dag, Sister Dag - there's Drummers!”  
  
  
    “Doof Drummers!”  
  
  
    Dag cannot see their faces, but she can see the uneasy shifts of their feet, and so she approaches, reaching for the Pups who flock to her and touching them with forehead-blessings - it doesn't matter that they have yet to understand what they Mean, it is the gesture that carries weight, and if they feel it as merely caresses to soothe, so much the better.  
  
  
    “Quiet, sweet sprouts,” she bids them,  
  
  
    “They are expected.”  
  
  
    “But why - ”  
  
  
    “Wha' for?”  
  
  
    “The Herald has acquiesced to pray with me,” she tells them calmly, clasping the little hands that wave around her like flowerless stems,  
  
  
    “The Drummer-Boys come bearing gifts to make it so.”  
  
  
    The Pups throng about and clutch at her as if she were one of their own, and it pleases her that they are yet so untainted, that they are free to reach for others, but at her words their clutchings turn desperate and their cries worried.  
  
  
    “The Doof-Warrior's coming Up?”  
  
  
    “ - that why we can' stay?”  
  
  
    “He eats Pups - ”  
  
  
    “Why's he playing, Sister - is it War?”  
  
  
    “ - alone -”  
  
  
    “ - Drummers too - ”  
  
  
    “Enough!” Dag calls, high and firm over all the multitudinous fears of the Pups who tug her every which way for their cry to be Heard first, and they subside only slightly, fearful still, and so she addresses what must be the highest concern,  
  
  
    “The Herald does not eat Pups - whoever told you such drivel?”  
  
  
    They look to one another and appear in agreement, shrugs abounding, answers of,  
  
  
    “Big Boys said - ”  
  
  
    “'S why's got them teeth for!”  
  
  
    “ - not s'posed t' look for 'im, case he eats us!”  
  
  
    “ - mustn' talk to 'im neither!”  
  
  
    Dag breathes deep against the swelling anger in her heart and smiles a calm she does not feel.  
  
  
    “You were lied to, sweet sprouts,” she tells them, as gentle in her hardness as she can be without allowing doubt,  
  
  
    “Old Joe did not want you to know the Herald, and so you were all lied to. I promise you, he does not eat Pups. I asked him here to pray with me once the Sun goes to sleep - and you should all be in your beds by the time we begin.”  
  
  
    One of the larger Pups casts suspicious looks towards the Bagheads, and steps in front of her almost protectively - Dag recalls that this one has been in the fields since the first seed she laid down. He wept for the Boy she planted - a Brother he would miss.  
  
  
    “Don' trust 'em!” he spits,  
  
  
    “They don' know greens! Trample 'em, they will!”  
  
  
    “That is why I drew the Circle,” Dag explains, signing a blessing over the brand at the base of his still-fragile neck,  
  
  
    “They are not to set foot anywhere but where I say, and all the Boxes will be laid in the Circle for the Herald. Seven is to wire them for use - the Bagheads are come only to aid the fetching.”  
  
  
    “... can we watch the wirin'?” the Pup asks cautiously, turning his head to look at her with outsized eyes, and Dag smiles.  
  
  
    “You all know where to set your feet, sweet sprouts, so as not to disturb the beds - the Bagheads are all at sea here. Make them a road to see by, to the Circle,” she bids them, and the little faces split into wicked joy, whoops whistling through their teeth as they hop to it, and Dag watches them make a row of white down the line of beds to the Circle as asked, raising their arms in salute and chanting her name in heart- beat time.  
  
  
    She walks the line to where Seven stands, asks,  
  
  
    “May they watch the wiring? I see it holds some fascination, your craft,” and his smile could rival the waves behind her, his nod blissful.  
  
  
    “Wan' me t' teach 'em, or jus' let 'em watch?” he inquires, and Dag casts a glance at the horizon, at how much light is yet left, and decides,  
  
  
    “Let them watch - any who wish to learn, promise to show another day, if you do not object.”  
  
  
    “Couldn' pick a better time, Doof Wagon's gutted for a full overhaul - there's days o' work,” he informs her with oddly cowed jubilation, and she sees the difficulty of wishing to be of use warring with the joy of working as he works best, and the need for this great beast of a Rig to be as it was, whole and in good order, the sacrilege of being glad that it requires work at all.  
  
  
    “A good time to take on apprentices, I'd say,” she agrees, and he grins at her understanding.  
  
  
    “Drummers,” she greets them over his shoulder, with slight coolness,  
  
  
    “I see you're hooded once again - this really will be the Silent Field, then.”  
  
  
    Seven snickers, and whispers too loud for them not to be meant to hear,  
  
  
    “Doof thought they'd best not speak t' you - didn' wan' you disturbed before the prayin' - so they came covered.”  
  
  
    “That was thoughtful,” Dag agrees loudly, smiling a knife's edge,  
  
  
    “Step this way, Boys - we've made it easy for you.”  
  
  
    They follow her silently through the Road the Pups have made, the little voices continuing to chant her name in a dulled thud of voices until it is like the step of a boot in sand, the whip of air between the Towers, and they quiet only once she points to the marked spots inside the Circle and asks Seven,  
  
  
    “Will this do for a stage?”  
  
  
    “'S perfect, Sister,” he nods eagerly, waving at the bagheads to set the boxes down upon her markings.  
  
  
    They do so with such care that it heightens the comedy of Seven diving on the nearest and beginning to fiddle its workings with his tongue between his teeth, free hand beckoning the Pups,  
  
  
    “Come on then - 'm not slowin' down t' wait for ya!”  
  
  
    They fly to his back and side as one, a churning mass of enthusiasm and limbs, and Dag steps away, to face the bagheads who now stand as one in a nervous clump.  
  
  
    “Thank you for bringing the amps,” she tells them politely, and they bow their heads and remove their hoods - she recognises the one who threatened Stitch, whom the Herald threatened in turn, and looks him square in the eye.  
  
  
    He buckles at the knees.  
  
  
    “The Doof-Warrior says he'll play for you, but 's not War he'll be playin',” he says, unsure, and his comrades sink to their knees as well, raise their hands across their chests in the strange salute the Herald used for them, and Dag watches warily, but he salutes similarly and goes on,  
  
  
    “We're the Doof Crew - if the Doof-Warrior answers t' you now, so do we, Bright Sister.”  
  
  
    “You all agree?” she needs to know,  
  
  
    “And no one forced you?”  
  
  
    “No one, Sister,” another insists, and then a third,  
  
  
    “We want to! Whole crew does - asked everyone!”  
  
  
    The one at the fore, whose face she knows, nods and says, uncertainly,  
  
  
    “All we know t' play's War, though...”  
  
  
    “All War is not ended because Peace has arrived here,” Dag tells them,  
  
  
    “But the Doof-Warrior answers to no one but himself and whomever he chooses to heed. If he will play War when there is need again, you may choose to follow. No one will compel you, just as no one will compel him. He plays for me tonight at my request - a prayer for Life.”  
  
  
    “So - 's not like Imperators? 'S not orders?” the foremost asks, brow furrowed with confusion, and Dag shakes her head.  
  
  
    “I have not ordered this playing,” she insists,  
  
  
    “And I am no Imperator. I am The Dag.”  
  
  
    “An' we're still the Doof Crew,” says the foremost, his Brothers murmuring agreement, solemn eyes fixed on hers,  
  
  
    “We answer to him. If he'll play for you, so will we.”  
  
  
    “And we'll all hear you gladly when the time comes,” Dag accepts,  
  
  
    “But tonight the Herald plays alone.”  
  
  
    They nod as one, and rise the same way, and Dag turns but does not give them her full back, and calls,  
  
  
    “The Sun has dipped - Seven, are we ready?”  
  
  
    Seven's head pops up from amidst the Pups clustered around him and the last box, and he flashes her a proud smile, tells her,  
  
  
    “All I need's the Doof himself!”  
  
  
    “Will you fetch him Up, please? And take Down the Pups?” she requests, and he scrambles to his feet as the bagheads replace their hoods and the Pups swarm her, the largest one again stepping between her and the Drummer Boys, glaring at them and baring his little teeth.  
  
  
    “Happy to, Sister,” Seven says as if he is just that, and begins to carefully retrace his steps away from the Circle. The Pups are not so willing to go, hands pawing at her and voices calling for her, and the largest Pup curls his hand around hers and growls at the Drummers,  
  
  
    “Crush a bed, wake up dead!”  
  
  
    “Hush, sproutling,” she chides him, but he looks up at her remorselessly and asks with hesitance,  
  
  
    “Sure the Doof won' eat you if we all go, Sister? Or none of us Pups?”  
  
  
    “The Coma Doof Warrior is no People-Eater, sweet sprout,” Dag calms him, blessing his notched lips,  
  
  
    “I swear it to you. I will send for you all in the new day, but you are all to stay Down until then, do you Hear me? This is Important. The Field must be clear until I say.”  
  
  
    “Yes, Sister,” he tells her dully, but in the same breath snatches a kiss at her fingertips and grabs another Pup, all of them chivvying the Drummers Seven's way. Dag watches them all go until they have left her in truth, and then she removes her boots and goes to kneel inside the Circle before the boxes, closing her eyes.  
  
  
    She is wound about in blacks tonight, over her whites, and she can see the Sun bleeding through her lids as the edge of the world cuts into it, soaking the sky red.  
  
  
    The Swells flow deep inside her, waiting, and she breathes to stir them, hands still, gathering herself, feeling the earth beneath her.  
  
  
    When the blue has almost bloomed full across the sky but the Moon has yet to show his face, she hears the Herald.  
  
  
    “So - are we raised enough here to touch the stars?”  
  
  
    She looks to where he stands upon the path to the Circle, Axe at his back, Seven by his side, face bare.  
  
  
    “Not quite so high - I've tried reaching,” she replies, his half-teasing smile an echo of hers but without her relief, and he allows Seven to lead him close, into the Circle, where she stands to meet him.  
  
  
    “Well, if I shake a few loose, feel free to keep them,” he tells her easily, and she is glad to be put at ease by it, the fears flooding her seeming to flow through her feet into the earth and disappear, and his grin is quick and somehow sweet, a further balm than the cool ground beneath her,  
  
  
    “Think your seeds might wake up to see you all hung about with stars?”  
  
  
    “I think they might wake up to feel the sky falling,” she returns, helplessly wicked, and there is something else to his smile to hear it.  
  
  
    He takes the Axe from his back, and Seven reaches for a coil of wires, begins to string them together somehow, some magic Dag does not understand coming into being between his hands, being offered to the Herald who takes it as though it were a matter of course, makes some adjustments to the Instrument in his hands.  
  
  
    It does not yet speak, but the waiting burns through her.  
  
  
    “You're all set, Doof - Sister Dag,” Seven murmurs, respect for the task they are about to undertake thick in his voice, and Dag feels within herself, and salutes him with Coma's sign, conjures rapture in his eyes.  
  
  
    “Thank you, Seven - you may leave,” she says softly,  
  
  
    “No one is to come Up until we come Down.”  
  
  
    “Yes, Sister,” he breathes in awe, saluting she and Coma, who nods to him as if he Knows. Perhaps he does.  
  
  
    Seven does not take long to leave, and then it is only she and the Herald.  
  
  
    “This is your show, Lady Starlight,” he says quietly, readiness thrumming through him, and she feels it in the air, feels it in the ground, under her skin.  
  
  
    “Then let it begin,” she whispers, and as he sets his fingers to strings, her own wind away the black and white until she is indeed star-clad, arms raised to the skies.  
  
  
    The Moon shows his face in time to see it, and in time for the first bright white scream to embrace her.  
  


 

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

  
    In a moment of his song, there are days, and in those days such moments that can't be counted but which count each part of her and thrum with the tune of them, and it directs her as always it has, but tonight...  
  
  
    Tonight his voice is not the War that nipped at her heels on the Road, that rocked her foul cradle under glass and lured her spirit outward in her despair, that unlocked the only doors she still had at her command.  
  
  
    Tonight he calls her, but not only to her but for her and within her, and it is such a song as she has never Heard before, sweetness too raw to be sweet, too loud to be gentle, too pure not to sting her flesh and flay her a little, and it shakes her to her foundation and lower still.  
  
  
    For a moment it is so lovely she wonders whether she will fly apart with it, certain that she was not made to contain such a sound, that it will pass through her and take her with it, wither her to nothing with the ache of it through her bones, but...  
  
  
    It passes, feeds another sound, another song, and she is borne upon the Swells like never before, has never felt them in such tempest as this, a perfect harmony of chaos.  
  
  
    The strains twist her about herself until she is not sure she can follow, but then at once pull her to where she must be, folds her back and catches her swiftly, too gentle not to fling her again.  
  
  
    She had not thought, she realises as she reaches for them, so much closer than ever before, that perhaps the sky could fall with this, but that perhaps she might be borne away instead - and she is -  
  
  
    She has never danced like this, shaken apart and throbbing, her blood a mere mist within her, to make her as light as she can be, to send her Sailing for only a moment, high enough to dip her hands in the Deeps above, high enough to soar on the wings he is lending her along with his Voice -  
  
  
    There is Life even in those Deeps, if she could only reach -  
  
  
    Before she can think it he has called them to Behold her, and she can but wave as they pass, as they Sail on and she remains rooted, and her eyes overflow at being so abandoned, forgotten, left behind -  
  
  
    The Herald's Voice calls her back, hands at her waist and fingers in her hair, never touching at all, all in song alone, calls her to task and her eye to the earth, and she recalls where she is needed.  
  
  
    Her soul is in the sky, but her roots are in the ground, deep as the Deeps above, and this is all for them, all for that which she has laid down, the Silence that will speak again, and yet -  
  
  
    There can be but one deal, but one motion, one purpose to this direction, and she understands this, but her promise would give one for the other, the Heavens for the earth, for what she has been given, what she is offering in return with hands not her own, and she knows when she has been Heard, that she is Beheld indeed, Witnessed most high -  
  
  
    Is that not what they call at their Time coming, Witness, Witness - well she calls not for herself, she is called for by a Greater Voice, and Witnessed for it, and it must impress even those who Listen, for the Deeps open to reveal themselves to her, the stars falling where his Voice has reached beyond the Casement, broken the Firmament, called down not just the stars but the eyes of those who Listen -  
  
  
    She will be Seen as well as Heard, Felt as well as Witnessed, and she feels the tendrils of light burn her mere flesh with their curious caresses -  
  
  
    Who reaches for the stars, they say, who dares -  
  
  
    The Moon-Children dare, beneath his sky, under his gentle eyes, they dare -  
  
  
    She is Seen right through, to the bones of the Earth, the soul of the Mother who bore it first, nothing under this light that swallows her, and the Voice that eats her alive and offers her up to be Held -  
  
  
    Her feet part unwillingly with the earth but the Heavens receive her with lover's arms - something she has only Heard in dreams and whispers might be felt, and she looks back a moment too long, reaches for the Herald unthinkingly with fingers split by light...  
  
  
    If she is carried away by his transcending, he is held aloft by will alone, calling down the stars to sweep her off without a word, and she knows now -  
  
  
    She knows now how it is possible to cry without eyes because she feels it in the Deeps and the very depths of her, how the Swells drain through the being and swirl into the abyss, how it dredges all that she is with its leaving, how it screams through her skin, the weeping of the innermost self, this its only path.  
  
  
    Her eyes fall to the skies and in them and in her she sees the many fathoms to the Seas, and hears it roar above her, sent from his fingers to meet its kin on high, and she is unravelled with it, bathed in its power -  
  
  
    Who parts the Seas, the Listeners Roar - who Sails against the Swells, directs their flow to suit their own ends -  
  
  
    They are neither of them lashed to the prow - it is theirs to Sail at will now -  
  
  
    Upon the last, as she feels herself flow into the night, her flesh flying apart before she is Lost, the Swells flooding forth in a burst of brightness to obliterate all else, he staggers, and her feet catch at the ground, her arms pulled towards him, and he sings his final note within them, releases the Axe and lets it fall where it may much as himself, as they sink together.  
  
  
    The Moon passes over his cheek and slips from his fingers, wet with blood and shaking, and she can't think but to gather them up, a worship in her own for what he has given her, and perhaps she trembles or perhaps the earth moves still, or do the Heavens quake...  
  
  
    The earth receives them gently, as if she had made their bed herself with as much care as any coverlet she smoothed here, but it is not occasioned by Death, it is demanded by Life and the all that they have offered here.  
  
  
    Without his Voice to guide the star-fall, the sky-falls, she is adrift, anchored only by his skin against hers, his blood hot in her hands, and without his Voice to return fire, the light of the Deep is too dark and bright all at once, and so she shivers, pulls her blacks to cover her just enough that she cannot be Seen any longer.  
  
  
    They lie there until the Heavens are silent once more, hidden within one another, foreheads pressed together, hands clasped, feeling the World right itself around them, and finally, finally the Herald laughs.  
  
  
    It is a music she Knows she could never contain.  
  
  
    “Lady Starlight, indeed,” he rasps, hoarse although this tongue has spoken not once, these lips have not once parted even for air,  
  
  
    “So tell me... did the earth move?”  
  
  
    “Once,” she breathes, still shivering, his hands in hers,  
  
  
    “In the caged days, from afar, you played so well glass rained from the sky - Angharad gathered some shards for her face. She cut it to remind herself who it belonged to. Whose choices mattered. I danced my feet to ribbons...”  
  
  
    She cradles his bloodied hands in hers carefully, remembering,  
  
  
    “I felt so free...”  
  
  
    She raises their hands only enough to press a kiss to his the nearest, whispers,  
  
  
    “Tonight you brought the Heavens so close you almost gave me to them - I wouldn't have minded in the moment. You moved the earth, Coma. You shattered the sky. Free is not the Word... I was never alive before this night, never Knew myself in full. Now even the stars Know me.”  
  
  
    “I couldn't give you away if I tried,” he says wryly, softly, and she laughs as she knows he meant her to.  
  
  
    “Oh, you weren't even trying? Should we take it again from the top, sir?”  
  
  
    This time his laugh is all wickedness and weariness, but his voice is sweeter than water where only thirst lives, and he pleads half-seriously,  
  
  
    “Please, no - I don't think I can manage more than one trip to the Moon!”  
  
  
    His merriment falls away into calm in the next instance, cooling in the air much like the blood on his hands, and he is all contentment when he tells her,  
  
  
    “From the top, you say... there is nothing Higher than this.”  
  
  
    “I say there is - haven't I just been there? You sent me yourself!” she teases, only partway untrue in fun, and he says nothing, only smiles and lives, and it is enough.  
  
  
    She smiles at him, his silent attention.  
  
  
    “Did you know you're dressed blood-hued?”  
  
  
    “No,” he says softly, and she blows gentle breaths over his hands to watch his lips twitch.  
  
  
   “I imagine so you can't be missed, but still... I always hoped you were. It's right.”  
  
  
    He says nothing, only breathes steadily, and she studies his hands, their strange delicacy, the power in them, how they do not seek or grasp or twist her own, content it appears to be merely held, asking nothing. Even her Sisters' hands are most often requests - as often at least as they are offerings.  
  
  
    His are neither. They are simply open.  
  
  
    “If the stars took me while I slept, I'd be content, now,” she feels,  
  
  
    “I've done all I can but sleep on it...”  
  
  
    “However sweet the Moon-Light sleeps upon these beds, you'll be wanted before long,” he tells her gently, and she sighs and twines her fingers with his.  
  
  
    “I can't go Down. There's so little Moon-Light left... But shall I take you? Would you rather go?” she asks, the wrongness of his leaving prickling at her eyes, but he makes no move to do so or ask for it.  
  
  
    “The Field's cleared until your word - if you claim we're Moon-children both, what harm can it do us here?” he reasons, soft and quiet, meant only for her, and she smiles for it.  
  
  
    “It wouldn't dare,” she whispers,  
  
  
    “He is nothing but a blanket now.”  
  
  
    “Do you need an earthly when you could claim that?” he asks her, and she settles into the earth.  
  
  
    “I feel as though the stars are shining right through me, open wide - this lit up, I may never need one again,” she shares, ear to the ground aching for the stirring of what lies beneath, but more alert to his heartbeat, thinking she almost feels it in the air.  
  
  
    She is more easily moved than heaven and earth, it seems, for it is enough to rock her to sleep.  
  
  
    She wakes in bloodied blacks with the light of Dawn, hands still matched to his in blood turned earth-dry with the warmth of they two together, all around them tender shoots peering barely from the nether for the spectacle of Moon-Children still star-shattered, and she laughs and has never yet understood Life so well.  
  


 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SINCE THERE HAS BEEN INTEREST DISPLAYED IN MY PLAYLISTS FOR THIS, I WOULD LIKE TO DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION HERE:
> 
> http://valkyrien.tumblr.com/post/127181298234/forsake-unsounded-deeps-to-dance-on-sands
> 
> PLAYLISTS CAN BE FOUND AT THAT ADDRESS - ALSO FEEL FREE TO TALK TO ME ON TUMBLR, THAT MIGHT BE FUN! :D


	9. Chapter 9

 

 

 

   He does not start at the sound of her laughter, but nor does he wake gently - instead he gasps and his hands drag at hers for a moment until he stills and uncurls them, and she untangles them more gently, mindful of how he bled before they slept, how what's left of it cracks and crumbles between them into the earth, and she sees now that his fingers are ragged with last night's efforts.

 

 

   “...Dag?” he asks, careful, and she smoothes her fingers over his and nods, a quiet sound.

 

 

   “I thought...” he breathes, and then removes his hands from hers with almost tender care, brings them to his face and inhales deeply, then moves to his knees in front of her, and so she sits up to bring them level again. She watches his frown blossom into apprehension, and she reassures him,

 

 

   “It's not your blood, Coma,” but his frown deepens at that.

 

 

   “Did you dance your feet bloody again?” he asks with concern, and she has to smile, although she doesn't think he'll understand why to hear it in her voice.

 

 

   “No... You needn't worry. Everything is just as it should be - I'm just as I should be... and we're not alone,” she lets him know, and the note of jubilation she can't help strikes a chord in him visibly, his lips quirking in hope.

 

 

   “They woke up?” he infers, expectantly, and she laughs again at the sweet openness of his face, how it matches his hands, the faith there, the pleasure at the prospect of their success.

 

 

   “All of them sticking their little heads through the ground to see what all the fuss is about,” she confirms, and he casts about as if he could see them, smile wide and soft.

 

 

   “I thought they might,” he tells her, trusting to her understanding, and she reaches for his hands again and they rise together, but the scent of fresh blood rises with them, and worse when she rewraps her blacks, disturbing the settled stuff there, and he pauses entirely.

 

 

   “Dag - ” he doesn't quite go on, poised on the edge of something that looks painful, and so she presses her hand closer within his again and assures him,

 

 

    “I'm listening,” and he flickers a smile so brief she barely sees it and then turns his head away as if in shame, hesitating.

 

 

   “If you're bleeding... If we go Down together and anyone sees my hands... They're already afraid of me. They're sure to believe I hurt you.”

 

 

   “I Heard,” she informs him, frowning not for his words but for those she now knows have been spoken against him always, and so she takes his other hand and presses their foreheads together, sure to tell him sweet and calm,

 

 

   “You've as much right as anyone to walk the halls bloody and unquestioned. They'll learn that soon enough, I promise you. And if they do question, well I'll have some things to tell them - waking the dead takes effort, and so does bringing Life into it. Blood, sweat, and tears!”

 

 

   If he had eyes he wouldn't let them meet hers, and she understands better than she wishes but is glad that she does, and so she offers,

 

 

   “I could wash it away, if you're afraid?”

 

 

   “I'm not afraid, walking with you,” he says quietly,

 

 

   “But I can't go Down bloody.”

 

 

   “Then you won't,” she accepts, holding her temple to his for a moment, smiling into her words, and he sighs relief that brushes back her hair, and when she pulls away she leads him by their hands to the spout and rinses his carefully - there's not enough blood even to cloud the leftover in the shallow run-off catcher, but when she releases him for a few moments to tear a strip off her whites and wet it to wipe herself, to rinse out the worst of the clots on her blacks, he asks softly,

 

 

   “Are you really alright?”

 

 

   She thinks that perhaps if he could see her face and the gratitude and deliverance there, he might be even more worried than he is now, to see that as she wipes her thighs clean and the white runs thick black and ruddy under the water, but he can't, and so she is hopeful that her voice will be enough when she replies with warmth,

 

 

   “Of course - I'm free now.”

 

 

   He doesn't question it - question her - and she likes it, as much as she likes his open hands, his stillness beside her, the undemanding ease of his company.

 

 

   Once she's done and fully covered, she thinks to ask,

 

 

   “What about the amps? And the Axe?”

 

 

   For some reason he looks wistful and sad for a moment, but it clears when he replies with ease,

 

 

   “The Axe comes with me - I'll send up the crew for the amps later.”

 

 

   It is acceptable, so she leads him to where he laid the Instrument and watches him settle it across his back, takes his arm with hers and walks them both to the edge of the Field, but she pauses before they turn to go Down, and he waits with a patience to him that removes the burden of admitting,

 

 

   “Part of me wishes we could stay. So it won't be over.”

 

 

   “We can do it again whenever you like,” he promises, and she smiles but it still feels as though she is leaving something behind here, stepping out of the Circle and rejoining the world, and perhaps he does too, because he says, a little teasing,

 

 

   “If we stayed here, there'd never be anything else - I think you might tire of it eventually. This way... you can always just come back.”

 

 

  “So it's never really over,” she understands, and he nods, smiling softly.

 

 

   “There'll be other plants, won't there? Other Moons, other nights...” he says warmly, and she slides her hand down his arm and curls her fingers into his, murmurs,

 

 

   “Not like this one.”

 

 

   “Better,” he promises her with a grin and a gentle press of his fingers, and she smiles and teases,

 

 

   “You think we can do better after all that?”

 

 

   “I think we might as well try,” he says practically, amusement lacing his tone, and it makes her laugh so hard she doesn't really notice that he's taken the first step Away and Down until she's followed, and then suddenly she's leading them both, and it doesn't hurt to move on anymore, not now there's the promise of more to come.

 

 

   A real future...

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EVERYONE GO AND LOOK AT THIS BEAUTIFUL PIECE OF PERFECTION WHICH THE TALENTED AND WONDERFUL INDIASIERRABRAVO HAS SO FLAWLESSLY RENDERED AS A RESULT OF THIS:
> 
> http://indiasierrabravo.tumblr.com/post/127898456447/valkyrien-i-may-be-super-slow-at-replies-but-i-am
> 
> WITNESS IT IN ALL ITS HISTORIC GLORY FOR IT IS THE SHINIEST CHROMEST THING IN ALL THE LANDS


	10. Chapter 10

 

 

 

   She's so enchanted with the idea that she almost doesn't notice Seven curled up under an alcove as they round a corner until she knocks her boot against his, and he flies awake with a yell and blinks up at them both with round eyes as if he's never seen their like. Dag thinks he likely hasn't, although he's seen them both before - it wouldn't have been like this, dirt-smeared and grinning and stood over him hand-in-hand.

 

 

   “Doof! Sister Dag!” he cries, as if caught at something he ought not have been doing,

 

 

   “I wasn' - ”

 

 

   “It's alright, Seven, you weren't anywhere near the Field,” Dag reassures him,

 

 

   “But why didn't you go Down with the others?”

 

 

   “Well...” he says shiftily, picking at the sand caked over grease on his trousers without meeting her eyes,

 

 

   “You never came Down, neither of you, an' the playin' was so shiny...”

 

 

   “You wanted to Hear it closer?” Dag sees, and he nods dejectedly, confesses,

 

 

   “I know it wasn' for me... 'M sorry.”

 

 

   “I understand what it's like to Hear the hosts and be unable to reach them,” Dag says with sympathy and sorrow, and Coma's hand seems to warm in hers, bringing her back from the cage of her mind, so she shakes herself and smiles at Seven kindly, nudges his boot with hers and winks,

 

 

    “It's alright, you know. And so is the Field!”

 

 

   His head tips up and his eyes fill with wonder and wet as he breathes,

 

 

   “Really? 'S all growin'? Like y' planned?” he asks, choked with emotion, and Dag nods and presses her shoulder to Coma's, laughs,

 

 

   “Just like we planned!” Overcome, Seven crumples into a ball and makes a high-pitched sound into his hands - like a whooping War-Cry except wetter - and then he scrubs at his face and jumps up, twisting his fingers into the V8 and shouting,

 

 

   “Glory be! And I'm the firs' t' Know it!” Coma laughs softly and remarks,

 

 

   “Third, really, but who's counting?”

 

 

   Dag can't help but giggle, but it doesn't dampen Seven's spirits in the least, instead he jumps up and down with barely contained energy and babbles excitedly,

 

 

   “Knew it'd work - Knew it always, Sister, couldn' fail - now it'll all happen, ev'rythin' y' said - all that Good'll happen - can I tell them, can I? All ought t' Witness what you've done - bet it's the chromest thing in the world - is it really Green? Oh!”

 

 

   “It's lovely,” Dag tells him, unable to hold back her own smile, the accomplishment she feels, the pleasure at being the object of such gratitude, such pride from another, a taste of what Seven certainly seems to feel is to come her way,

 

 

   “And you can tell anyone you like, but first I must take the Herald Down, and the amps must be removed from the Field - I'm going to tell my sisters.”

 

 

   Coma nudges her shoulder this time, and she looks at him and sees the slight concern on his face, hears it as a shadow in his voice as he suggests,

 

 

   “You could go straight Down and tell them. Seven can take me - I'll send him back up with the crew to remove the amps. It'll be faster.”

 

 

   She almost argues simply so that she won't have to leave him - she Knows whatever spell is at work, what they weaved last night, will really be broken if they part - but that shadow behind his words tells her what he's really saying. She's still bleeding, he knows that, just not the why of it, and she might not be able to make it back to the others before it can be seen if she takes him Down first.

 

 

   “Of course, faster,” she echoes, vague with the unexpectedness of this precise care for her well-being, and he presses her fingers again before releasing her and stepping away slightly, in lighter tones saying,

 

 

   “Seven's right - they should all come and witness your triumph. Sooner it's uncluttered, the better.”

 

 

   She wants to reach for him again, but now is not the time, she realises, so instead she begins to untangle her hair idly with her fingers, listening with half an ear to Seven's rapturous extolling of how he shall be one of the very first to see the New Greens. It makes her smile.

 

 

   “Will you come Up when Capable announces it?” she thinks to ask, as Seven begins to lead him away, and he smiles at her over his shoulder and says,

 

 

   “If you want me there. It's your Day, Lady Dag.”

 

 

   “I'll want you there,” she insists, and so his smile sweetens a little and he nods.

 

 

   “Then I will be.”

 

 

   It comforts her strangely, and then the two of them are gone and Dag takes the path that will lead her to her rooms, meeting no one until she begins to see Pups hanging about a little further Down - always there are Pups here, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Sisters, sometimes waiting for one of them in particular, and she is glad to know this for it means she is prepared for when her little Helper from yesterday suddenly comes flying at her from an adjoining corridor and shouts,

 

 

   “We Heard the Prayin' - we Heard it - it was so chrome - an' you're not eaten, like you promised!”

 

 

   “No, sproutling, I'm more whole than ever, and the Field is green and glorious - why don't you spread the news?” she suggests, delighted with the way his little face glows and he shrieks her name in triumph, revelling in what she has achieved.

 

 

   “I'll tell everyone!” he swears to her, high-pitched but serious and reverent, jumping up and grabbing her hand so he can plant a sticky kiss on it before running off, his shout reverberating off the walls,

 

 

   “The Field Greened! Sister Dag Greened the Field!”

 

 

   She can hear the fires it lights as well, the little pockets of sound punctuating the distance of his echo - other Pups, she thinks, taking up the cry.

 

 

   She doesn't see any more of them when she slips into the Vault, but she does see Cheedo, sitting amidst a great pile of books, and when she sees Dag she gasps and throws herself to her feet, springing to Dag's side and clutching at her arms as if to check that she is unharmed.

 

 

   “Dag! We thought- I was waiting - when you never came Down - ” Cheedo begins, fretting,

 

 

   “I know you said you were going up to pray, but then you never came Down and we heard you - we heard the Herald - and we knew he was with you, and you'd told everyone to leave you, but then after it was over you still didn't come, so you must have slept up there after you finished...”

 

 

   “We did,” Dag confirms, mild as she can be, and Cheedo's face is all aquiver, skewed and upset.

 

 

   “Together?” she asks in trembling tones, and Dag is suddenly so tired.

 

 

   “Yes, together,” she tells her, holding on to calm by a thread,

 

 

   “We were neither of us up to the walk Down.”

 

 

   “But... wasn't it strange?” Cheedo asks with big, worried eyes, and Dag sighs a dream of remembrance to herself.

 

 

   “Not after what we shared,” she breathes softly, startled by Cheedo's cry of,

 

 

   “Dag!”

 

 

   “What?” she asks, not understanding the dismay of Cheedo's voice, put out of balance by the suddenness of being pulled from her silvered memory by it, and Cheedo's eyes are somehow both frightened and reproachful, and surely there's no need for that?

 

 

   “You - you didn't...” Cheedo says nervously, a note of scolding in it that is surely misplaced, and Dag frowns at her and pushes,

 

 

    “Didn't what?”

 

 

   “I - I mean - the two of you - the way you said... you didn't..?” Cheedo's discomfort is tempered by a disappointment Dag does not like, and so perhaps she is a little harsh when she tells her,

 

 

   “I asked him to help me pray, and that's what he did. You must have all Heard it - after that we were both too tired to walk Down, so we just stayed Up. It's not difficult to understand.”

 

 

   “We did all Hear it,” Cheedo acknowledges, chewing on it, uncertain, watching Dag closely with near-suspicion, but when Dag returns her gaze stubbornly she finally subsides, and with grudging wonder tells Dag,

 

 

   “I didn't know it could be _beautiful_ , not like that,” and Dag feels a sliver of irritation stick her side, and asks perhaps a little sharply,

 

 

   “And why not?”

 

 

   “Well... because...” Cheedo motions towards her face and grimaces, and then adds,

 

 

   “And I wouldn't think he could play anything that wasn't War.”

 

 

   “So because he does that so well he shouldn't be able to do anything else as well or better?” Dag demands crossly,

 

 

   “As for his face - the ugliest thing about Coma is what was done to him. He played for me until his hands bled just because I asked, and we woke up the Field together. I've never heard him say an unkind Word yet. Just because the old schlanger wanted a caged monster for a pet doesn't mean the Herald ever was any such thing!”

 

 

   “You woke up the Field!” Cheedo exclaims as if that were all Dag said, hands flying to her cheeks, face splitting in jubilation,

 

 

   “That's wonderful - oh, I'm so glad! Now we can finally feed everyone - we can grow healing plants, we can prove our way is really Better!”

 

 

   “Yes,” Dag agrees, shifting on her feet in slight discomfort, gripping Cheedo's arm to be let past, and she frowns at Dag strangely and follows her with almost fearful steps, venturing,

 

 

   “Are you hurt..?”

 

 

   “No, I'm bleeding,” Dag tells her vaguely, not realising in time that Cheedo's gasp is for the blood sliding thickly down her leg, so not quick enough to stop her from crying out,

 

 

   “Bleeding! But why - ”

 

 

   “Either the would-be Warlord was too sick already not to shake loose or there never was anything in the first place,” she says shortly, already unwinding her wrappings,

 

 

   “Nothing that's not happened before. Never was as regular as he'd have liked to see, rot him.”

 

 

   It's true - Moon-cycles, she remembers them being called in distant memory, Moon-Children bereft of the light of that gentle observer can't thrive, and she has been bereft, was for so long, even the fullness of her life not enough to sustain her through that.

 

 

   “Or maybe the hate finally dried me up inside like I always dreamed - what does it matter? I'm bleeding now, it's done,” she tries to make it simple, but the tears in Cheedo's eyes are not a balm and they do not ease her task - they never have, she sighs, and she has to turn away.

 

 

   “Are you... are you sorry..?” Cheedo tries, hesitant, and Dag can feel herself grow hot and angry, but she tries to keep it from her voice when she says,

 

 

   “No. I'm free. We're all free. There'll really be nothing left of him.”

 

 

   “Oh...” Cheedo breathes, hovering just behind as Dag begins to clean herself again, and she feels suddenly, angrily, oddly, that her sister's presence in this moment is unwanted - the questions are unwanted, the eyes on her, the concern, it's all unwanted, it is not helping - and it clouds her eyes because that isn't right, she knows that Cheedo's fears are all rooted in love, that she just wants to understand so she can help if there's a need, but still it rankles somehow that she won't simply leave Dag be with this, that she is trying to make deeper sense of something that should be so simple as Dag being released -

 

 

   “ _Dag!_ Cheedo - !” Toast barks as she skids into the room, and Dag stiffens but does not turn around, keeps her movements methodical, tries to focus on them instead of on the Swells pounding inside her head, wanting to pour forth from her lips in sudden rage, and Cheedo whisper-whimpers,

 

 

   “Dag's bleeding, she's - ”

 

 

   “Bleeding! What for - ”

 

 

   “The baby - or - maybe not, we don't - ”

 

 

   “What's happening, why's - Dag, you're back?” Capable's voice, sweet and pleased to see her, but Toast's is angrier than usual when she cuts in,

 

 

   “Didn't come Down all night, and comes back bleeding, we never should have let her - ”

 

 

   There's no _letting_. Not anymore.

 

 

   The Dam breaks.

 

 

   “ _It's not for you to say!_ ” she turns on them and screams, and they flow together as they always have, but she doesn't care, not when they don't care enough for what she might care for, because this is something that's all her, and she's too tired to hold back,

 

 

   “He's _dead_ \- the old schlanger's dead and gone and we're all free, just like we dreamed of - I've planted a whole Field of Death for that dream - _Angharad died for it_ \- and it was all so we could be free, so we could Speak for ourselves, own ourselves - and you berate me for going where I will as if it's for you to decide - to let me - ”

 

 

   She's barely coherent, and this is what Miss Giddy always feared, when the Dam breaks inside Dag, when she can't hold together the threads of herself any longer and she has to scream, has to purge herself -

 

 

   It's what Miss Giddy feared might happen if Dag gave herself over to the Herald's Voice, why she was so afraid for Dag to move with it, to Hear it - Dag loses control and does not care who Sees it, who Hears it, at the extreme of herself, and it used to be what Joe hated most, that she would Speak her mind always, refuse to be cowed, worse when pushed too far, bound too tightly -

 

 

   He used to beat her for it until she couldn't lift her head to spit at his feet, a bitter smear on the ground.

 

 

   He used to laugh at her Fire once burnt out, assured by his filthy Butcher that she was not broken, that the peculiarities of her mind could not be passed on to any child he might wish to plant in her.

 

 

   He used to laugh because surely the strength of her spirit was something that could be inherited from her besides her beauty and health, worth having, worth wanting in a son, worth breeding for -

 

 

   _“There'll be a kamicrazy one out of you, won't there? You'll give me a real fighter!”_ he used to mock her, the perversity of the pride he took in not having destroyed her, in how her hatred fuelled her in perpetuity and would not be Silenced...

 

 

   Proof of his ignorance.

 

 

   No child of hers would be a Warlord, whatever foul seed it grew from it would nevertheless be nurtured by her, and no bloated, rotting old bastard could plant any seed strong enough to drown out her will, she always Knew.

 

 

   Now there will be no child at all - may never have been one, and she does not mourn.

 

 

   This is her true triumph.

 

 

   She won't have it stolen, or tainted, by the feelings of others, however grown in love they may be, however afraid for her they are.

 

 

   Dag will never be caged again, not even by the love and concern of her sisters.

 

 

   “I'm finally Free - my Voice finally matters and it's for me to choose how to use it - where to go, what to do - I won and no one can take that, I won't let anyone take that from me!”

 

 

   Cheedo is weeping freely and Toast's fists are curled tight, but Dag does not care.

 

 

   “He's dead and the Field lives - he'll get no legacy from me, there will only be mine and I'm not sorry - I won't mourn what might never even have been - I'd rather die than stand here and listen to you talk as if it mattered more than me, as if how you feel matters more than my freedom, my victory - control is not protection and love is not a leash and I won't be bound, never again, not even by you!”

 

 

   She knows her voice is a shriek, that her face is wet and vicious, she knows she's naked and bleeding and frightening her sisters, but she does not care.

 

 

   “No one but me has a right to my body or my feelings, my will is the only one I will ever heed again! I am not a Thing - I am Myself! I'll do as I please for my own sake and I can't care if you don't like it because I'm my own first and you should love that before you hate anything I choose to do if you love me at all!”

 

 

   It is Capable who starts forward, but then it always is, always was, and she folds Dag into her arms and rocks her, covers her and protects her from the shuddering fury that won't be quelled, and then Cheedo sobs and flies at them both, arms going about them too, and then Toast cries,

 

 

   “I'm so sorry - you're right, I'm so _sorry_ \- ” and flings herself to envelop them so that Dag is cocooned in a love more ferocious than any hurt that could find her, and she weeps and screams until she is spent, needing to release it, the poison of hate and fear and needing to escape herself, and her sisters hold her and rock her and wipe her blood and tears away, the dirt from her face and hair, and they bundle her up in fresh blacks and clasp her tightly until she is still, until she is within herself again without it paining her.

 

 

   “Did you say,” Toast asks quietly, swallowing first,

 

 

   “The Field's come alive? So it worked, whatever you went up there to do?”

 

 

   Dag nods her reply, throat and chest raw, and she feels Toast kiss her cheek, the corner of one stinging eye, and the comfort of her voice with all its fierce pride,

 

 

   “I knew you could do it.”

 

 

   “We all did,” Capable adds warmly,

 

 

   “It's wonderful. We're all so proud of you.”

 

 

   “Is it really all Green up there now?” Cheedo whispers, as if she can't imagine it, and Dag breaks her silence to croak,

 

 

   “They're just peeking at the world, but they're all there, all alive.”

 

 

   Her sisters rock her between them and coo and trill,

 

 

   “That's so good, so good...”

 

 

   “We never doubted you...”

 

 

   “You've done so well, worked so hard...”

 

 

   “Not just me,” she reminds them wearily, and Toast shrugs and says,

 

 

   “It's your Field, your name they're all calling.”

 

 

   “But you're right,” Capable soothes before Dag can argue, strokes Dag's hair and agrees,

 

 

   “You never could have done it alone if they hadn't all been so willing to help. That's the Point we need to make. Do you want to be there for the Announcement?”

 

 

   “Yes...” Dag nods,

 

 

   “I want to Speak.”

 

 

   “Then you shall,” Capable declares,

 

 

   “Whenever you're ready, you just let us know - it doesn't have to be today.”

 

 

   “Yes it does,” Dag insists, struggling upwards, out of the nest of her sisters' limbs, wincing,

 

 

   “Today's the Day. Today is my Day, and I want to share it with them. I want them to Know.”

 

 

   “It'll be the greatest Witnessing of all,” Capable promises, smiling sweetly, rising to put an arm around Dag to support her, and Toast and Cheedo uncurl as well, and for a moment they stand there holding one another, all smiling at Dag, and she thinks she can feel her stunted roots begin to unfurl and seek their new home in truth.

 

 

   “I want the Herald to be there,” she stipulates, and before Toast can frown, she presses on,

 

 

   “He woke up the Field and he's more than they think he is. He's more than anyone knows, yet.” Toast nods, chastened, and Cheedo nods with a smile, accepting, and Capable kisses her cheek and says,

 

 

   “Then we might as well bring him Up with us!”

 

 

   Dag rests her head against hers and smiles through the ache inside her head, in her bones, behind the blood.

 

 

   This is her victory.

 

 

  


	11. Chapter 11

 

 

 

   She aches with the kind of exhaustion that only follows the Dam finally breaking, so she is glad of her sisters supporting her as they leave their chambers, and gladder still of the shield of them when they are almost at once surrounded by whooping Pups whose hands seek her alone.

 

 

   “Sister Dag!”

 

 

   “Sister Dag! 'S it true?”

 

 

   “Sisters!”

 

 

   “Sister Dag - y' really ain' eaten!”

 

 

   “Can we see the Greens?”

 

 

   Cheedo's arms are secure around Dag's waist but her eyes are troubled when she looks at Dag who is too drained to do much more than smile feebly at the flood of little voices and their clinging, searching fingers, and so Cheedo's eyes go to Toast, who has yet to become accustomed to the boundless energy and constant presence of the Pups and instead shores up Dag's other side and keeps her free arm outstretched to ward off the little ones as gently as she can.

 

 

   Capable is the one who calls to them, though, her voice enough to quiet without much raising,

 

 

   “Yes dears, it's really true - Sister Dag woke up the Field, and the Greens have sprouted, but she is very tired. We are going to Announce it so Dag can tell you more, but we need all of you to gather everyone. Would you do that for us, please?”

 

 

   “A Speaking!” one of the larger Pups cries in delight, and it echoes among the others, little faces grinning madly, tiny fingers saluting - Dag sees a few pairs of hands weaving prayers just like hers, like they have been taught, her little helpers, but all the faces are glowing at her, and it is her name they are calling.

 

 

   “A very Important Speaking,” Capable agrees solemnly,

 

 

   “And then anyone who wants to may go and Witness the Field. Hurry along now and tell everyone, please.”

 

 

   The mad dash to heed Capable as quickly as possible tosses almost enough sand into the air to obscure their leaving, but their shrieks of delight and cries for all their Brothers to gather for the Speaking can be heard for some time despite Dag and her sisters moving down a hall in the opposite direction.

 

 

   There is uncommon activity in the corridors, Boys and Pups rushing to the promised Speaking fast enough that they haven't time to stop and make obeisance, saluting instead as they pass by at speed with ecstatic shouts of she and her sisters' names, but it lessens as they begin to reach the heights of the Herald's quarters, Dag leading them, and so it is a surprise to them all to round the sharp corner and find the space suddenly full of Bagheads - a wall of flesh and tails and low voices between the briefest glimpses of red, and so her sisters stop and draw closer around her, this also unfamiliar to them all but perhaps for Cheedo whose hands clasp Dag's arm a little tighter nonetheless, and so Dag calls,

 

 

   “Sirs, we seek the Herald - he is awaited!”

 

 

   The drummers turn at her voice, snatch their masks away and fall to their knees, raising their hands to her in that strange salute which mimics the shape of the Axe, and their eyes shine worshipful as they murmur,

 

 

   “Sister Dag - ”

 

 

   “Sisters - ”

 

 

   “Bright Sister - ”

 

 

   Dag returns the gesture with the hand Cheedo is not holding to her side, and they fall silent, but beyond them stands the Herald, mask in hand and Seven at his right, and he lifts his sightless face to them with a look upon it almost as of caution, as if he does not quite believe.

 

 

   “Dag?” he asks, and she feels Toast start beside her, glances at her sister's frown furrow her brow and narrow her eyes, and she has to force her smile.

 

 

   “Yes,” she tells him, ignoring the Bagheads and Toast's clear hostility,

 

 

   “I brought my sisters. We are going to make the Announcement - will you join us?”

 

 

   “I'd be honoured,” he tells her sincerely, and it grants her smile depth and reality and sees her reaching from the throng of her sisters to step forward, the Bagheads parting as she passes, and take his arm gently, telling him,

 

 

   “You will be. As you should.”

 

 

   He smiles at her briefly, and then settles his mask over his face, and through it murmurs so softly she knows her sisters cannot hear,

 

 

   “Let Seven lead me Up - ” her fingers tighten around his arm without her wishing it, and she frowns and glances over his shoulder at where Seven has subsided in deep salute to her sisters, eyes averted, and she wants to argue, but Coma's calm soothes the urge when he continues,

 

 

   “You should be with them, for this.”

 

 

   It doesn't seem right, but she thinks on Cheedo's instinctive recoiling, Toast's displeasure, and Capable's silence, and she knows they're not as ready as she to open themselves and believe, to accept. Today is the first step towards changing that.

 

 

   “You know it's ours,” she needs to make sure, that he understands his part in it, the importance of his contribution, and a strange rigidity forms under her fingers where she is touching him, but it relaxes in the same breath and there's no change in his tone bar a softening when he replies,

 

 

   “All yours, Dag. But thank you.”

 

 

   She allows herself a slide of her hand down his arm to his wrist, a brief tangle of their fingers, hidden between them, and then steps away and says, loud enough for all to hear,

 

 

   “If you'll follow us Up, please? You're all invited!”

 

 

   She smiles and winks at Seven when she turns and is glad of his immediate blissful grin, sees Coma hold out his arm to be led, and then she walks through the kneeling drummers to her sisters, allows them to swallow her once more, and they all begin the walk to the Platform.

 

 

   The drummers say nothing, masked again, and nor do her sisters, but she can hear Seven chattering excitedly to Coma, walking with him in the midst of the Bagheads, and she catches Cheedo giggling at it and exchanges a smile with her while Toast rolls her eyes but graces them with her own brief grin, and Capable's smile is softly sadder - for Nux, Dag thinks, that he can't be here, that he is not by their side but back in their rooms, still sleeping, still mending, this enthusiastic Boy must be reminding her of how silent and still her own sweet Boy is as yet -

 

 

   Dag lifts a hand to stroke Capable's cheek, and her sister blinks in surprise but gives her a grateful look, and the sadness flows from her eyes like water.

 

 

   Dag has not yet spoken from the Platform, and although she knows what she wants to say, for a moment she is overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the triumphant roar of sound from the awaiting crowds that engulfs her as she steps forward, even the warm comforting barrier of her sisters no shield against it, but as Capable untangles herself and takes Dag's hand, moving to be seen and close enough for her voice to be amplified, Dag looks back at the Herald's silent, masked form, and takes a deep breath.

 

 

   Capable raises her arms, Dag's with her right, and the crowds still.

 

 

   “You are all asked here to share news of the Silent Field,” Capable announces, her words met with a sea of bone-white arms held aloft in salute, in acknowledgement and reverence,

 

 

   “My sister Dag's work - with your help - has given it Life at last!”

 

 

   Where before the victorious shouts from below and around them, from the Towers and beneath, were a mass of words, now they take the form of only one.

 

 

   “DAG! DAG! DAG!” come the Voices, joyous and reverent, not only sharing in her victory but honouring her for it, and Capable looks at her, at tears where she had thought herself barren, the Swells no longer within her but reflected in those whom she now serves, battering her with their pride in what she has accomplished through them, and Capable releases her hand and steps back, and Dag sinks into the sound for a moment, thick enough that she almost believes it would hold her up if she flung herself to the ground.

 

 

   She holds up her arms for herself, reaches to them, and she finds that her fingers do not curl into their salute, nor into the gesture of the Vuvalini, nor into a prayer.

 

 

   She salutes their collective Voice raised as a single entity in her honour with the gesture of the Herald.

 

 

   The silence is immediate.

 

 

   “Last night you will all have Heard the Herald playing in the Field,” she says, feeling the strength of their attention, feeling it carry her,

 

 

   “It was a Prayer - a Prayer for Life, so that we may sustain yours and those to come in future. It was my hope that it would be enough to wake your sleeping Brothers, whom I wished to give a true Life Eternal - one that would allow them to continue to serve us all, as we know they would have wished.”

 

 

   The faces she sees around her are awe-struck, hopeful, and some like her own are even shining with tears. She Knows what they need to Hear because it is what she Knows she must say.

 

 

   “My hands were not enough to plant the Field alone, and my Voice was not enough to lift the Prayers to the ears of those who Listen. You turned your hands to the task when needed - this is your victory - and when asked, the Herald lifted not only his Voice but my own to the Heavens and brought down the stars to wake your Brothers in Earth and stir them to their new calling, to their new Life Eternal. It is also his victory.”

 

 

   She turns and reaches out to Seven, who very gently pushes Coma past the foremost Bagheads, whose hands steady him, and into her grasp, and his outstretched fingers twine with hers easily, the touch somehow grateful although she cannot see his face, and she brings him to her side to be Beheld, and shouts,

 

 

   “Look to your Brother! Look to your own Hands! And Hear me - by all our Hands together we shall be Lifted! We need not grab the Sun - it does us more good in the sky than on the ground! We need not ride eternal - for when we leave this Life we return to the Earth and a Life Eternal through those whom we feed, who shall remember us for all Time, and remember what we have Given! Through all our efforts the Field is Green, and will be Greener still with Time, so I ask you to share with me this moment, and to Witness what we have won! In Honour of the Fallen - in Honour of Life - in Honour of all that will Be now that we are Free to Live and Speak and Grow!”

 

 

   Her voice echoes for a moment, and Coma's hand in hers is all the shield she needs before the storm, solid and safe.

 

 

   “WITNESS!”

 

 

   It is an onslaught. It is louder, brighter, more intense than the heat of her ride to Freedom on the Fury Road. It reverberates an imperfect cadence of emotion that shakes the walls like the Herald's Voice raised High, and pounds in her blood, throbs in her ears.

 

 

   “WITNESS!”

 

 

   The Swells cannot be heard or felt.

 

 

   “WITNESS!”

 

 

   There is only the feeling of what her Words have done, what she has wrought, and the gentle hand in hers raised to the world that will Live again through them all.

 

 

   “WITNESS!”

 

 

   It is done, and they are Witnessed in Truth.

 

 

   “Now Raise yourselves to Witness the Field with us and greet your Brothers anew - we shall welcome them back into the World together!” she bids them, the pounding roar of movement and boots and her name and the call that she is Witnessed blurring as she salutes them one last time and turns away, leaning on Coma's arm as she looks to her sisters.

 

 

   Their faces shimmer before her, her tears and their own.

 

 

   Seven's face is awash, a muddy smearing of wet white and thick grease, but his eyes are clear and they watch her with something that she does not recognise, something more than awe, pure and sweet.

 

 

   The Bagheads are unmasked, arms crossed over their chests in salute to her, a strange sort of terrified reverence painted across their faces, as if they have peered too long into the Swells and seen things in the Deep they cannot explain but with fear.

 

 

   Beside her, Coma is silent, so she speaks instead.

 

 

   “Shall we introduce them all to our children?” she asks, a tremble to her voice that was not there when she Spoke before, alight in every way to what they have done, and his arm shakes in her grasp.

 

 

   It is a moment before she realises that he is laughing, but then he speaks and it is clear, warm and amused and flying perhaps as far above them all as she still feels she does, insisting,

 

 

   “Your children, Lady Dag. I'm just a Harbinger.”

 

 

   “More than that,” she tells him intently, leaning into him and smiling but weighting her words with utter conviction,

 

 

   “And now they'll Know.”

 

 

   “Thank you, Dag,” he murmurs, in the second before her sisters can no longer hold back and rush to embrace her, and she opens her arms to them readily, but through their hair and their cries of love and pride, she sees the Herald, still close enough to touch although no longer by her side, and she feels that she has won something else.

 

 

   Something that is not yet ready to be Witnessed.

 

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

 

 

 

   It is clear to her as they approach the Field, her sisters and she, Seven, the drummers, and Coma, that it is she who is awaited - none have dared set foot there before her and it is she whom their eyes seek - but as she passes faces set with streaming eyes and mouths that whisper her name, she feels the need to tell them, before they all follow her to see the Greens,

 

 

   “Thank you for waiting, but the Field is as much yours as mine - ” and she smiles at the Pups on the shoulders and arms of their elder Brothers, and bids them all,

 

 

   “Now come and see what we have wrought together!”

 

 

   Boys and Pups alike stream past her into the Field, her sisters crowding her as if to protect her, but Dag knows that she is safer in the swell of all these many shouting, surging bodies than she is even in the Swells of her own mind.

 

 

   It is enough to settle her thrumming bones, but as she watches the flickering blur of passing Boys, she sees that Coma's drummers have surrounded him just as her sisters have her, and it causes her to frown, for not a single Boy rushes past close enough to touch the Herald at all, whereas she and her sisters are only just an island in their midst.

 

 

   When they are all past, she and her sisters follow, and she stands at the edge for a moment and drinks the silence deeply, sees that they have amassed at the edges of the Greens, that some have climbed the spout-shed, that still others have scaled the wind-barriers and are perched there to watch the better.

 

 

   There is nothing but reverent gasps and held breaths on the air, and then -

 

 

   “ _SHRIEK!_ ”

 

 

   A Pup howls as if in agony and tears away from the throng of Boys to her right, sobbing and howling what must be a Name, and Dag hears a sharp bark of censure and command from one of the Boys, but the Pup does not heed it, heeds nothing, and instead springs across the Field on nimble feet which do not once come close to crushing a seedling, and then abruptly the Pup flings himself upon the earth, the length of a bed, curling around a seedling with shielding arms and a devastated wail, and Dag Knows.

 

 

   That is the first bed.

 

 

   This is her little helper, who on the first day wept so bitterly for the first Boy planted - his lost Brother.

 

 

   This is the Pup who bared his teeth at the Bagheads for her sake, for the sake of her work and the seeds laid down, what they all hoped would grow from it.

 

 

   She breaks free from her sisters' arms at once and flies towards him with outreached arms, and around her she hears murmurs and oaths sucked through clenched teeth - Boys afraid of how she will punish this Pup, she thinks, but no, no how could she punish love?

 

 

   The Pup does not see her coming, face planted in the earth almost as if he wishes to become a seedling himself and be planted alongside his lost Brother, but as Dag draws near she can hear the Words of his grief, that they are not only of Loss but of Hope -

 

 

   “ - Shriek, you _grew_ \- Sister Dag said - but you waited so long, you smeg, I _hate_ you, why'd you stay under so long, didn' you miss me? I was here ev'ry day - I was alone an' you wouldn' grow - you _wouldn'_ \- ”

 

 

   Dag kneels by his side and turns his face to her gently, leaning in to wipe the tears and snot that have already turned to mud smeared across his cheeks and pinked mouth with a corner of her blacks, and he heaves a great sob as his eyes turn fearful, realising what he has done, but Dag smiles and tenderly gathers the heaving little body to her breast, cradling him and hushing his tears, stroking the trembles from his back.

 

 

   “Shhh, sproutling... I Know,” she whispers, and the Pup's arms curve around her neck as if he almost doesn't dare, so she rocks him gently and says,

 

 

   “I Know it hurts. But look at how beautifully he grew, do you see? How far he's grown already - you should be proud. He must have missed you, don't you think? Your Brother. What was his Name, sweet sprout?”

 

 

   “Shriek,” the Pup hitches into her ear, raw with tears,

 

 

   “Died on the Road. I didn' - didn' mean t' - t' - was gonna wait - but - he grew jus' like you said - I wanted t' see him - why didn' he grow faster if he missed me too?”

 

 

   Dag places her hand over the brand at the base of his neck and hums to him, strokes his back in the rhythm of calm breaths, and she tells him softly,

 

 

   “Life can't be rushed, sweet sprout. And between you, me, and the stars, I think I might have buried them all a little too deep and soft, just a touch, so they were sleeping so well they just couldn't Hear us - it's a good thing the Herald agreed to help me wake them up a bit!”

 

 

   “Th' Doof Warrior?” the Pup asks, pulling his wet little face from the crook of Dag's neck to look at her with a trust so great Dag has to close her eyes to it and nod, but when she opens them again, the trust has become reverence and joy, and the Pup shares with her as if it is a holy secret,

 

 

   “Shriek used t' love the Doof playin'.”

 

 

   “Well then we're lucky he agreed to do it for us, aren't we? Don't you think all your other Brothers worked a little harder to come back for it? To Hear us all better?” she asks, and the Pup's eyes become solemn as he intones,

 

 

   “Shriek was a lazy smeg - was always hard t' fire up after sleepin' 'cept when the Doof played.”

 

 

   Dag keeps the laughter from her voice just barely as she says,

 

 

   “I don't doubt he earned his sleep, sproutling.”

 

 

   The Pup nods and smiles through the remaining tears, tells her proudly,

 

 

   “He was a real shine lancer - 's hard work! Was gonna teach me, too!”

 

 

   “Whatever you become, I Know he would take pride in you,” Dag insists, and the Pup's brow wrinkles, voice uncertain when he asks hesitantly,

 

 

   “D' y' think he grew for me, too? Little bit? Not jus' for you an' the Doof?”

 

 

   “If the Herald and I woke him, and all your Brothers who lie here now, I Know that their growing they will have done for you and the others, sweet sprout,” Dag says, and the little body relaxes with a relief so great it prompts fresh tears, and the Pup throws his arms about her neck tightly and kisses her cheek, clinging fiercely, and so Dag rises to her feet, the Pup's legs curling around her waist with equal ferocity, and trails the beds back to her sisters, whose eyes are also wet but whose faces are all love and pride now, and she looks around at the gathered Boys, at all the Pups, and raises her Voice.

 

 

   “No one will ever be punished for loving here - or for grieving those lost to us. The Field is yours as well as mine, but firstly it is the home of your departed Brothers, and they will be here for you always should you need them - that is what true Eternal Life means. That we are none of us alone, even when we have been left behind,” she shouts, and the Pup stirs in her arms and looks around at his astounded Brothers, seeming to realise that he is as much their focus as Dag is.

 

 

   He ducks his head for a moment and then starts in her grasp, looks to the Herald standing with Seven to her sisters' right, the drummers no longer a barrier to sight, and before Dag can do anything the Pup has launched himself into the air and onto the ground, diving to wrap both arms around Coma's leg and cry,

 

 

   “You woke them - you woke them, thank you - ” and there are cries of alarm from the Boys, but all Dag hears is the sound that reaches to her from behind Coma's mask as he raises his arms to avoid touching the Pup, a wordless exclamation of shock, and she hasn't time to react before one of the Bagheads has bent to drag the Pup away wriggling and shouting his displeasure and surprise, with a harsh growl of,

 

 

   “Hands off, Pup!”

 

 

   Dag feels her extended hands claw with rage, but it is not her Voice that protests, nor even that of the Boys around and above the Field watching every move.

 

 

   “Stop!”

 

 

   It is the Herald's voice, and it pierces the air almost as bright and pure as when he Speaks through strings, severs something in Dag, and the drummer stills instantly, even the Pup going limp in his hands, all heads turned towards the Herald, expressions shocked, the Pup's mouth slack with it, huge eyes terrified.

 

 

   Even the wind does not dare disturb the scene.

 

 

   “Release the Pup,” the Herald commands, and the drummer obeys at once, depositing the Pup upon the ground as if scalded. He lands on his behind and seems unable to move for fear, gazing up at Coma open-mouthed.

 

 

   “Dag, please,” Coma appeals softly, one hand curling in her direction as if he could truly see just where she stands, and her breath catches.

 

 

   “Come here, sweet sprout,” she murmurs, feeling dazed, moving to pluck the Pup from the ground - he goes easily, as if he doesn't feel her at all, attention fixed on the Herald, and Dag moves closer, strokes the Pups' cheek absently as Coma's masked face tilts downwards to where he could almost be looking at the Pup directly, and his own voice is a little breathless when he says,

 

 

   “You owe the Greening to Lady Dag, but it was an honour to serve her. She deserves your thanks.”

 

 

   Dag feels the Pup go rigid, and fear strikes her, but the dear sprout pipes up stubbornly,

 

 

   “An' you! Sister Dag said you Helped - she told us all!”

 

 

   “She did,” Coma agrees, a tinge of amusement to his words, but Dag can hear the tremor below the insistently pleasant calm and she aches to know the why of it, to remove it for all Time,

 

 

   “Sister Dag is gracious beyond Words.”

 

 

   “Whassat mean?” the Pup asks suspiciously, and briefly Dag can feel that she is the true target of the Herald's reply, that it is she whom his eyes would seek if he had the choice of it, when he softly enlightens,

 

 

   “Generous and good.”

 

 

   The Pup squints up at her and then grins, looks back to Coma, and says as if it's a grand secret,

 

 

   “Shriek would'a liked her.”

 

 

   “What's not to like?” Coma asks with that same teasing tone he takes with her, but there is utter severity there too, and the Pup giggles and then darts forward and again wraps both arms solidly around Coma's leg and says with high ceremony,

 

 

   “Thank you for helpin' Sister Dag wake up the Field.”

 

 

   Dag sees Coma's hand waver, as if he can't decide where to put it, but finally he rests his fingertips just barely upon the exposed little head and replies,

 

 

   “Thank you for helping her Plant it.”

 

 

   The Pup pulls away, grinning ear to ear, and salutes him, and somehow he knows, for he returns it with his own one-handed gesture, the one which felt so natural to Dag earlier upon the Platform, and again the world around them erupts in a roar of,

 

 

   “WITNESS!”

 

 

   Dag wonders whether any of them have Witnessed as truly as she, here, but she hasn't time to wonder long, for the Pup is swept up instantly by the Ace and borne aloft upon those wide shoulders, and then Dag Knows why, for almost in the same instant she and her sisters are themselves Raised upon reverent shoulders, enthroned on High by Boys, and Dag sees that even Toast's alarm gives way immediately to proud delight, that Cheedo is laughing, that Capable's grin is triumphant, and then she sees that beside her the Herald is also Raised, and she reaches out to snatch his hand in hers before he can be carried too far from her and Knows by the solid, grateful press of his fingers that he recognises hers although no Words could possibly be Heard above the joyful roaring of the Boys all around and beneath them, their Names and Deeds being honoured with such whole-hearted fervour.

 

 

   She does not release his hand even when the Boys have forced the Sun to Witness them all to their hearts' content and place them upon the ground safely, raising their arms in salute instead, chanting their reverences in time between her Name, her sisters' Names, and Dag Hears Capable amplified somehow, calling for them all to celebrate Below where there is no risk to the fragile seedlings, and so there is a fresh crush of limbs, and amongst them are Dags and Coma's, as she pulls the black over her hair and steals the Herald away in the sound and fury of a New World being born gloriously into a field of Love.

 

 

   He does not resist.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS FIC AND ITS HUMBLE AUTHOR HAVE BEEN BLESSED YET AGAIN BY THE GENTLE HAND OF INDIASIERRABRAVO
> 
> BEHOLD THE WONDER THAT IS THIS BEAUTIFUL PIECE OF FANART:
> 
> http://valkyrien.tumblr.com/post/128628624584/indiasierrabravo-valkyrien
> 
> IS IT NOT FANTASTIC? GO FORTH AND IRRADIATE THE DESERVING ARTIST WITH PRAISE FOR LO IT IS WELL-DESERVED!


	13. Chapter 13

 

 

  
    She can't quite believe that it's so easy, that they are not pursued, that their escape goes unnoticed, or that he follows her so readily, so trustingly, as she pulls him along through narrow corridors and emptied halls, away from the noise, sand flying under her boots, and it makes her feel powerful somehow, to have stolen the Herald from under everyone's noses - to have stolen herself, even, and it makes her smile and then grin, and then laugh to herself, and she looks back to see whether the echo touches him at all -  
  
  
    - and sees that he is still masked, that his free hand is flung out to catch at the walls, and so she plants her boot in the sand and slows, stops almost, pulls him towards her and steadies him with her own free hand.  
  
  
   He doesn't quite stumble but he does falter on his feet and pull back to avoid colliding with her directly, and so the hand she isn't holding his with simply comes to rest over his chest, and she can feel the beating of his heart too-rapid under her fingers. They smooth over the red of their own accord, vague as her thoughts, but although she's not grinning anymore she can't help her smile and it matches the one on his breath when he asks,  
  
  
    “Dag, where are you taking me?”  
  
  
    Of course he doesn't know, she almost could have forgotten with the simplicity of taking his hand and running, and it is a humbling thought, for she hasn't just stolen the Herald away from the crowds, spirited them both off without a word to anyone - she really has stolen him in truth, even from himself, as well as from anyone who might intervene on either her behalf or his, and she is suddenly a little ashamed at her presumption.  
  
  
    “Oh, I - I should have asked,” she realises, he should have been given a choice at least, and she is disappointed in herself for not remembering this when it's so Important, but he laughs - not at her, but at the idea, she thinks - laughs and shakes his head and says as if it really is that simple,  
  
  
    “I went because I knew it was you. I'm just curious.”  
  
  
    She's only standing still in an open corridor, there's no reason she should feel so warm, but she does.  
  
  
    “You don't think I'd lead you off a cliff?” she teases, because perhaps then he won't notice how very warm she is, and she doesn't have an answer for him if he asks why, just as she hasn't got an answer if he should think to ask why her fingers are trailing the edge where soft red gives way to whitened skin. She wonders if it's warm, too, like his hand still in hers.  
  
  
    “Is that the plan?” he asks with exaggerated surprise,  
  
  
    “We should have stayed in the Field, then, it'd be much easier from Up there.”  
  
  
    “Too many Witnesses,” she can't resist saying with wicked relish, and he nods as if it makes perfect sense.  
  
  
    “Ah, of course,” he agrees, mock-serious,  
  
  
    “You'd never get away with it.”  
  
  
    “I don't know about that - I'm very popular today,” she says archly, and she's absurdly glad of the mask because it means she cannot see the look on his face that makes her feel as if he knows exactly what she's doing when what she's doing is watching how close she can slide her fingertips without leaving the relative safety of red and crossing the border to uncharted white territories, and it's silly enough to make her smile at herself because even if he can't see that she knows he must be able to feel it...  
  
  
    So distracted is she by her own daring fingers that she doesn't notice his free hand rise and curl around them until it has, not restricting, just there, but it makes her look up, and now she wishes she could see his face when he tells her, soft and utterly certain,  
  
  
    “You're very popular every day. It's well-deserved.”  
  
  
    Nothing moves, but she is much closer than before, she thinks, wondering how that came to be -  
  
  
    A ringing clang in the distance as of metal striking a hollow pipe makes her gasp and start, and then she dissolves into laughing at the same time as him, draws back still holding both his hands and swings their arms between them for a moment, and her feet tickle, so she pulls at him and gives him one hand back and laughs,  
  
  
    “Come on!”  
  
  
    He's not as nimbly sure-footed as she is, but he keeps up, and the only sound where they go is that of their combined breathless giggles and their feet on the sandy stone, and it's so freeing, feels just as though they're doing something they oughtn't although Dag knows they're both free to do just as they please, and that somehow makes it better.  
  
  
    She rounds the corner she was looking for too sharply, and again throws out her other arm so he won't fall, but he does stumble this time, right into her, and she didn't think that holding him like this would be so oddly nonthreatening but it is - it only truly reminds her of doing the same after he played in the Field for her, when they were both too exhausted to remain standing, and it was she who reached for him then, too, so perhaps it's that, but she thinks it must also be because he doesn't clutch at her, she isn't trapped by him at all, and he pulls away from her as soon as he's regained his footing - she's the one holding on -  
  
  
    “...Dag?”  
  
  
    Perhaps he's called her name more than once, she couldn't say, he sounds worried, but even still he doesn't touch her beyond where they were always joined at the hand, she is still the one handling him in truth, and it's such a strange thing to have done of her own accord and without even a hint of fear at doing it that she doesn't understand herself, frowns at her hand because it must know some secret that hasn't reached the rest of her yet, of why this is safe but so many other things are not.  
  
  
    “Yes,” she hears herself say absently, still frowning at her fingers on his arm, and when he asks,  
  
  
    “Are you alright?” she has no answer, but when he takes half a step back her fingers clutch harder, and she has never done that but with her sisters before.  
  
  
    “I'm not afraid,” she realises, the answer materialising suddenly like a reflection coming together on settling waters,  
  
  
    “I'm not afraid to be close to you.”  
  
  
    He doesn't speak or move, barely breathes, even, but then she thinks of something else, and asks because this also seems strange to her,  
  
  
    “Why are they?”  
  
  
    The odd rigidity she felt earlier coagulates anew under her fingers, and so she opens her hand and he raises his arm to remove his mask, holds it loosely by his side and with the bitterness of defeat tells her,  
  
  
    “Joe.”  
  
  
    It says all that needs saying - perhaps all he can bear to say to her - but it leaves so much more to be Known and understood. It's a word that could explain her own past, too, and yet would be entirely insufficient, because no Name could ever do that - even his will never have that power.  
  
  
    She hopes Coma knows that, understands that only he can or will ever truly define his past - that his is the Name that matters.  
  
  
    He says nothing else, and Dag wonders whether he too is feeling the weariness of being wash over him - that bone-deep ache even a day as glorious as this cannot heal.  
  
  
    She wonders whether he might need what she does, because of it.  
  
  
    “Come with me?” she says at last, lifting their joined hands a little, giving him as much of a choice as she can knowing that he wouldn't get far alone, and he doesn't speak, but he nods and so she leads him the last few steps to his own door, watches him breathe and understand, and his tone is cautious when he asks,  
  
  
    “Why have you brought me here?”  
  
  
    “I thought you might be as tired as I am,” she says carefully, afraid of what he might be Hearing, even more afraid because she still isn't sure what she means by this except that the thought of any hands that grasp and clutch at her weighs her down until it feels like drowning in the Swells she should be sailing in glee today, that being questioned even by those whom she can trust to love her stings her eyes and she is trying to escape as gently as she can but without having to be alone, that her Voice is beginning to feel as raw as her mind, that she is starting to worry that all these eyes on her will wear her away to nothing...  
  
  
    “Dag... they're calling your Name,” he replies, quiet as if they could be overheard,  
  
  
    “You're awaited.”  
  
  
    “I know, but...” and she doesn't feel guilty for having left the celebrations, nor does she believe he thinks she should, but how to make him understand why she did it?  
  
  
    “I need to be alone, just for a little while.”  
  
  
   “Then why..?” he begins, and she warms again, and admits before he can really ask,  
  
  
    “I'd like to be alone with you.”  
  
  
    “Alone in the dark?” he asks, and she Knows by the tone of his voice that this means something different to him than it does to her.  
  
  
    “I won't be if I'm with you,” she insists, and his mouth twists as if it hurts to hear.  
  
  
    “Believe me, you will,” he says grimly,  
  
  
    “There's no light here but what you bring.”  
  
  
    This, too, is something he means differently to how she would Hear it, but she isn't certain of how, so she simply presses her fingers around his and says,  
  
  
    “All I brought was myself.”  
  
  
    “I know,” he replies softly, and then he smiles and adds so sadly she can't bear it,  
  
  
    “But no one wastes light on the blind, Lady Dag.”  
  
  
    “It wouldn't be a waste, although I don't doubt the old schlanger thought so, but I won't need it - you can guide me for a change,” she says, stout and stubborn, and it makes him laugh as though he'd never expected to again, almost shocked, and then he shakes his head with a smile and surrenders.  
  
  
    “You'll have your way,” he concedes, and she feels proud with it.  
  
  
    “If you'll show it to me,” she prompts, and he sighs and turns his head to the door in the wall.  
  
  
    “I'd show you anything you ask for, Dag - I just can't know how you'll see it,” he tells her quietly, and she twines her fingers with his securely and reassures him,  
  
  
    “No one ever can - no two ever see alike.”  
  
  
    He hesitates, and so she lowers her voice and confesses,  
  
  
    “I'm sick of the light, Coma.”  
  
  
    The smile he wears is oddly lovely.  
  
  
    “I Know what it's like to be sick of yourself,” he replies, whisper-soft, and opens the door to nothing.

 

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

 

  
  
    It takes a slight push for him to lead her, but she does not resist once he does.  
  


  
    The door closes and she thinks perhaps they both wonder why she went so easily.  
  


  
    Dag wonders whether he Knows after a moment as she does, that she went for a gentle hand in hers and a voice that does not take from her own, whether that is all that convinced him, too.  
  


  
    “I'm not afraid,” she promises, shares with him the secret that is now not only in her hand but her heart and behind her eyes, and she doesn't need to see his face to know he understands,  
  


  
    “Just tired.”  
  


  
    Her eyes strain for anything at all to tell her where she is, and it is oddly disorienting until she simply closes them, and then it's a relief to her, and more so, for it makes it easier to focus completely on his hand in hers, how he carefully directs her forward, and his voice when he says,  
  


  
    “Put your other hand out, Dag - not too high, straight will do, not far.”  
  


  
    She does, hesitantly, not that she thinks he would have led her so close to anything that might hurt her, but because she does not know what it is her fingers might find, so when they brush something cold she gasps in surprise, and then laughs and fancies she feels him smile in the dark - she certainly feels his fingers stroke hers as if pleased - and he instructs,  
  


  
    “Move around the rail, on your side, keep your hand out, but lower...”  
  


  
    So she does, clutching what indeed feels like cold metal, moves around it, and her other arm lifts as if he has done the same some short distance between them away, and then she realises what she's feeling, and it's so easy to say,

  
  
    “Oh! You have a real bed, too!” but still she does not let go of his hand, and she can tell that his is wider even than the one she is used to, the ones she and the others would sometimes share at night instead of simply nesting together on the floor like children, and investigative fingertips also tell her that his is raised on stone rather than metal legs, but despite all this she makes quick work of tucking herself in next to him, their clasped hands between them although she grips his more tightly, and it takes only moments to be comfortable.  
  


  
    There really isn't any light here, but Dag knows that they are lying side by side, she turned in towards him, an echo of how she woke up in the Field with him although he is not facing her this time, she doesn't think, the angle of his arm and wrist seems wrong, she thinks his breathing sounds a little too far away as well, and it is because of this that she can ask,  
  


  
   “How do you see me, Coma?”

  
  
    She can hear as well as feel him move from his back to a truer mirror of her own position, a more perfect revision of how they slept last night, the tension and curve of his arm and wrist relaxing, and she thinks perhaps there is more to his image of this than there is to her unpractised sightlessness because again she feels that he is somehow watching her intently, although his voice is simply warm and thoughtful when he says,

  
  
    “How do I see you...”  
  


  
    Now she can feel his breath move the air between them, that he's just as close as he ought to be like this, and she can't help her eyes opening, seeking him despite there being nothing to see, and it's frustrating because she wants to know if the smile she thinks she can hear on his lips is really there or if there's some other sweeter expression, perhaps one she's never seen before, and it occurs to her that he might feel like this always, always just short of satisfied, never quite sure.  
  


  
    “It's an imaginary sight of the soul,” he sighs at length,  
  


  
    “That presents your shadow to my sightless view.”  
  


  
    “So you do see me,” she says softly, and wonders how, for in her mind she is shaping an image of what he might look like now, how he might be shaping the words, but while it doesn't satisfy as well as she knows true sight would, she at least has memories of his face to use in the forming of such imaginings,  
  


  
    “But how?”  
  


  
    “For the most part, you're borne on the air,” he tells her simply,

  
  
    “I hear you in it, I can feel you there - it pries me open, makes a home... Whether it's you as others see you, I can't say, but who could? There must be a different you living inside everyone you've ever known.”

  
  
    “I think so,” she agrees, and closes her eyes again, curls her little finger into his palm because she can and smiles, and wonders,

  
  
    “But what does the air tell you about me, then?”

  
  
    “That for a Moon-Child you wear the Sun in your hair and under your nails,” he teases, but only in part, and she smiles more brightly and waits.  
  


  
    “I don't know beauty by sight,” he says more seriously,

  
  
    “But I know you're beautiful.”

  
  
    She laughs in spite of herself and insists,

  
  
    “You can't be sure, I might be hideous!”

  
  
    “...no,” he murmurs sadly, once her laugh has disappeared into the dark,

  
  
    “You're not.”

  
  
    She knows why it's sad, and it's in her mind too, suddenly closer than she'd like, and he is not close enough to shield her from it - and she wonders where that thought came from, how he could when it is something that grows within her, not a thing rising from the shadows they've drowned in together to sink its teeth into her flesh - so she reaches out to find his other hand to hold as well, for anchoring, but instead her fingers collide with his chest, so she unfolds them and lays her hand over his heart, feels him live and breathe.  
  


  
    “I wished I was,” she confesses, sure she cannot be as small and scared as she sounds in truth, and he reaches up and puts his free hand over hers where his heartbeat is flowing into her, entwines their fingers, and it's enough for her to go on, bitter and angry,  
  


  
    “If I'd been born ugly, the old bastard never would have wanted me.”  
  


  
    Coma's thumb strokes her wrist for a moment before he says, very quietly,  
  


  
    “My mother was beautiful.”

  
  
    Dag wishes she could see his face - she wants to know the love that must be there for it to flow so freely from his lips.

  
  
    “Of course you'd never think it, looking at me, but she was,” he tells her, as if not quite sure she'd believe him, but she does, and he sounds oddly distant when he goes on,  
  


  
    “She told me once that when she had me, everyone thought it'd be a blessing if I died young. No one would have blamed her for not wanting me, but she did, and I lived when lovelier children didn't, and she used to say that beauty can be its own curse - people covet it.”  
  
  
    Dag listens and breathes and a tear forms upon her cheek but she does not interrupt.

  
  
    “If I'd been beautiful then, I'd have traded it for sight if I could,” he murmurs, and Dag Knows that this is an old pain, an old regret made no less for how impossible and hopeless it is,

  
  
    “To see her once. Whatever she looked like, whatever anyone else thought, she'd have been lovely to my eyes if I had any.”

  
  
    “You'd have been lovely to hers,” Dag is sure, her voice wet but her hands warm in his, his chest steady under her fingers still,

  
  
    “There's no face a mother couldn't love.”

  
  
    “I never hated mine until they came,” he says softly, and she can feel his heart quicken with the pain of remembrance,

  
  
    “It made it too easy for them to cage me, use me... It made it too easy for him to make me monstrous in the eyes of the world that was left. I know he'd have found another way, but...”  
  
  
    There's an old bitterness to his shallow sigh that she knows too well.

  
  
    “All he had to do was feed them a little poison and they all fell down. I'd have liked to make him work for it.”

  
  
    It isn't funny but it makes her laugh, a shadow of her own anger behind it reaching for his, and she moves a little closer and says,

  
  
    “He'd be in a fine lather to see us now,” and Coma makes a soft sound.

  
  
    “His pet monster and one of his precious songbirds, free at last to be human,” he muses, not without humour but as if there is something in him which is not yet truly free, and it makes her ache to think of that, so she moves her hand up slowly, his slipping to hold her forearm loosely, as she lets her fingers follow the pulse of his life and feel the proof of it in his skin, warm and real, a kind of Truth she'd never have thought to look for, and she can't see what she's doing but she Knows it and that's better anyway, her hand coming to rest against his cheek, cupping his face as she presses her forehead to his and confesses,

  
  
    “You're more human than I know what to do with.”

  
  
    “Oh, so you see, Lady Dag, how I Know you're beautiful,” he replies gently, just for her, and the Swell of his Life under her hand and between her fingers and beside her so close it could be hers pounds to the rhythm of the Swells behind her eyes, and she thinks she doesn't need them to Know all the most Important things there are, not now,  
  


  
    “Not because others coveted you, or because you're chrome-coloured with star-shine hair and sky-eyes - ” at her soft sound of surprise she can all but feel his smile and he admits,  
  


  
    “Seven told me - trying to describe you so I could understand, but I think now the way I see you is truer to Life.”  
  


  
    “How so?” Dag whispers, and she thinks she could swallow his answer if she isn't very careful, so she hardly dares breathe but holding it brings them as close as they've ever been and it's almost too far to hold on to herself.  
  


  
    “I can't compare you to the Sun or the Moon. I don't know what others see to covet - your colours, your shape...” the way he says it she could almost doubt she has those things at all despite how solidly she can feel herself lying here with him, that she is more than warmth in the dark and the sound of their Lives mingling like beloved voices too far away to hear clearly, just a sweet edge to the air,  
  


  
    “All I have to Know you by is what I'm told, but it's not how I see you. When you move or speak, the earth sings and I can feel it in the air... You're never the same and always yourself, the same music played over too many variations to catch even with a perfect ear, never a repeated strain, always the same harmony. I can smell life all over you, hear it in you, and you glow with it, vast and endless.”  
  


  
   Even if there were light to see by all she'd see would be a veil of tears, and they slide down her face in silence but smell hot and shining in the briefness between his voice and the one she is holding back, and she wonders if he can taste it as she can, sharp proof that she continues, that she endures.

  
  
    “You are the only person who could believe that I am something that can pray,” Coma tells her, almost a prayer in itself,

  
  
    “So I see you, Dag... Defiant life. A dagger in the dawn.”

  
  
    They are her Words, she Knows this, and she wants them - they Belong to her - so she slides her hand closer, traces his mouth to be sure, and breathes them in.  
  


 

 


	15. Chapter 15

 

 

 

 

   His mouth is not ruined under her fingertips, nothing to fear or revile, and she wonders whether it ever was, what Cheedo and the others see there to distrust and dislike.

 

 

   Whatever foul thing old Joe meant for him to be, Coma is precisely what Dag has named him - human, before all else, beyond most whom she has known, and it is this which prompts her tears, which gives her cause to weep, for to lie here with him in freedom, sharing breath, sharing Words and being given them as gifts purely meant and asking nothing in return is too beautiful to bear, and so even had his mouth truly been a ruin Dag could never see it as such.

 

 

   Nothing so lovely as warmth and safety without confinement or demand could ever be born of deceit and ugliness. Even upon her lips it gives no cause for concern, is nothing but close comfort, this gift she is inhaling with every breath.

 

 

   It isn't truly a kiss, although it both is and is not. No kiss as Dag has ever known them. It is more and less than something so simple because Dag refuses to taint it with her tears, whatever their origin in happiness and gratitude.

 

 

   This is something Dag knows nothing of, an extension of how easily she wants to be near him, living and breathing together, and how utterly unafraid of that she is, and if she had to name it she'd say it is exactly what it should be. Close and Real and as undemanding as the way his hands and mind and all that he is has been since first she Knew him, and that seems to be the answer in itself.

 

 

   Dag is so close to him that when he murmurs,

 

 

   “You're crying,” the fresher, hotter tears are for how sweet his voice feels in her own pained throat and how its warmth fills her chest and comforts the ache there, and how gentle the unavoidably slight touch of their lips is because through her choice to be just where she is with him there is room for nothing more between them, even Words, and that is everything she never knew she would have asked for if she could.

 

 

   “You See me,” she tells him, because he should Know this too, that he has shown her to herself and what it means,

 

 

   “More truly than I ever Saw myself,” and she's helpless to explain how this can be but it's as Real as he is, and she finds herself laughing, soft and broken despite how much stronger she feels now than she can ever remember feeling, and her lips and fingers tremble where they can't but touch his face, and it's so easy to be open, here, with him, to be truly open and safe not because they are alone in the dark but because she is not alone,

 

 

   “I thought I was lost,” she admits on a hitched breath, and she can feel him smile.

 

 

   “Hidden is not lost,” he tells her, calm and warm, and she shakes and her eyes stream although they're closed, but she breathes with him still and she exists where his voice reaches and their flesh connects and she is safe in herself in every way, and this is a purging of a different kind to the earlier but it runs no less deep, and she doesn't want to escape her skin anymore.

 

 

   She wants to feel it.

 

 

   His fingers are no more careful than always within and around her own, but she feels so present that the sensation of exposure brings with it a fragility she is unused to, and she thinks he must know because there is a degree of delicacy to his hand on her arm that was not there before, so that she feels not only held but cradled, something she never thought to feel where she is not at all restrained. It is so different to her sisters holding her together while holding her back, forcing her to return to herself after she has flown apart at the edge of her tolerance, and the gratitude this unasked for support of her freedom even in this inspires can't be expressed in any Words she Knows.

 

 

   “You were never lost, Dag,” Coma says, and he sounds so certain where she is so unsure, where for so long she was adrift and so far from her true self,

 

 

   “You were and are always you. Whatever parts of yourself you hid for their protection were never lost. Playing the same tune for years does not mean an instrument loses the ability to play an infinite array of others.”

 

 

   “You could always pray,” she understands,

 

 

   “And I was always myself...”

 

 

   “Always,” he says softly,

 

 

   “I know I would rather have died than given or shown that part of me to Joe or anyone who served him, so I hid it with the last of my hope. He stole everything from me and then he stole me to use, but I kept that for myself. I buried it deep and hidden but it was always there, keeping me whole inside...”

 

 

   “I was stolen,” Dag shivers, the memory of it needling her flesh,

 

 

   “I was used... I hid to stay whole, but I thought I'd lost things, parts of me... I thought they were gone, so I was gone...”

 

 

   “You're here,” Coma reassures her simply, a quiet passion under truth so pure it's ruthless,

 

 

   “Every wondrous element and glowing part of you, whole and unspoiled and free to flourish in greatness and glory. Only you could dim your light, Dag, and nothing can eclipse it.”

 

 

   “I'm here,” she repeats, realises, and it is not easy,

 

 

   “I am here, with you. I am myself.”

 

 

   “As only you could ever be,” he says with fervent warmth, and she smiles and it will not be washed away by the tears she cannot yet restrain.

 

 

   “Thank you,” she tells him, needing him to know what he is giving her, allowing her fingers to stroke the ridge of his cheek gently, trace the edge of bone beneath skin where it gives way to the hollow meant for an eye.

 

 

   Those, she feels, if he had them, would be lovely even beyond what is unbearable to behold, and it is a thing she feels deeply enough that she could believe it might even be merciful that those who Listen have withheld them - spared her the spell she doesn't doubt they would cast.

 

 

   Still... she would give much to see them, and be seen by them, to be told what more they could reveal of her.

 

 

   Already he has stripped her bare until she might be raw with it if she did not feel so protected here and he had not done it with such care. She can hardly think what might remain of her to be revealed and unravelled for closer examination, and the thought of it is thrilling and terrifying to contemplate.

 

 

   “I have done nothing to earn your thanks,” he seems to believe still, as he did when they met, for it is in his voice and his heart does not betray it as false, but she does not agree and he must know this too.

 

 

   “Nothing?” she demands, and it is a weak laugh, it is diluted with water and weariness and a hint of fear that it will not mean what she wishes it to,

 

 

   “You woke me up and made me dance when I was caged and locked inside myself - you played for me to banish my fears and gave me another Name for what I am now!”

 

 

   “I only told you what truths I know - some of it you even asked for,” he says as if it were only that,

 

 

   “The playing... I was glad to. I will always be glad to. You only have to ask, Dag, and I'll play.”

 

 

   “It brought me back,” she presses,

 

 

   “It anchored me where I was adrift.”

 

 

   “You let me pray and believed that I could and that it would matter,” he murmurs, deliberate and solemn,

 

 

   “That is thanks enough.”

 

 

   “No,” Dag disagrees passionately, a heated whisper for she can muster nothing more and a shake of her head that makes tears scatter across both their faces,

 

 

   “It isn't. You See me, Coma, and you showed me myself - just like your voice guided and strengthened me in the cage, you showed me that I'm not lost. That is _not_ nothing!”

 

 

   “You are not lost,” he tells her again, but this time there is a wonder to it, and something fierce she does not recognise but which is somehow insufficient on its own,

 

 

   “You are here, with me, and for that I thank you.”

 

 

   “I want to be here,” she insists, and it sounds slow, impeded as if she mumbled, and she is confused by it.

 

 

   “That truly is all the thanks I will ever need from you, for anything I can do,” he says, and it makes her tremble although she can't think she will ever feel the cold again, the same way she trembles when he plays and those sounds scream through her and for her,

 

 

   “You chose to share your light with me. That will always be enough and more.”

 

 

   “It is mine to give,” Dag sighs,

 

 

   “I can think of no one better to share it with than you. I might never have found it again without you.”

 

 

   “You would have,” Coma promises her gravely,

 

 

   “You are undiminished and undeniable. There isn't a bushel big enough to hide your light forever.”

 

 

   “But you helped, and you See me true and truly,” she marvels, her eyelids heavy and soaked, her voice fading,

 

 

   “I'm not afraid to be beautiful, the way you See it... Thank you...”

 

 

   “You're tired,” he murmurs, and it envelops her more completely and more welcome than the softest of wrappings she has ever known, sinking into her and making it so and even more so than it already was.

 

 

   “I said so,” she remembers, so she reminds him, and he makes a sound that carries her off upon itself slowly, like being borne away by the swells but gentler, sweeter, and she has no fear that she will be swept under and will never resurface.

 

 

   “And never told a lie...” he hums softly, deep and good, Real and wanted,

 

 

   “Can you rest without a Moon-blanket, Lady Starlight?”

 

 

   “I'm all lit up...” she mumbles, recalling,

 

 

   “I need nothing that isn't here...”

 

 

   His fingers are stroking her arm to the rhythm of her slowing heart and the flow of her blood through her veins, a throbbing song that he could almost be playing for her, upon her, and she wants...

 

 

   “Coma..?”

 

 

   “Dag?” he utters, and it is soft and light and sweet and lovely, and she smiles at the way it tastes upon her tear-slick lips.

 

 

   “Stay,” she pleads, and his fingers travel the paths of her arm to the same soothing song but his voice is a vow.

 

 

   “I would never leave you alone in the dark.”

 

 

   She knows this, and she makes some small sound so that he will know that she does, that she trusts his word, but her cradle is incomplete of a sudden and she is not as near as she knows she ought to be, and so she takes her hand from his face and slides it down his neck, over his shoulder and along his arm, so that she will not lose her way, dislodging his fingers from their work, and they are motionless and stiff in hers when she grasps them, and so she squeezes to reassure before placing his hand upon her waist and adjusting it so that his arm holds her close as can be.

 

 

   Her own she replaces where she liked it before, between them with their other pair where they are still joined securely, her hand on his face again feeling right, and she settles against him and finds that this is what she needs.

 

 

   “I trust you,” she breathes, and only then does he relax, all his tensed strength curling around her anew, calm and steady as his chest moving against hers, the heartbeat in his fingers she can now feel against her own and upon her back.

 

 

   She is safe. She is warm.

 

 

   She will never be lost again, not even where there is no light but what she brings. She has a guide, now, even back to herself.

 

 

   “Thank you,” Coma sighs, and Dag feels the Life in him and her own reaching back, and she can rest.

 

 

   Even in the dark he burns so brightly she is alight.

 

 

   Together, is her last thought before peace overtakes her, they must be beautiful enough to blind.

 

 

 


End file.
